* 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 affected by gentle words from your husbands and cheerful states of mind on their part, and that you take delight on account of these with all your heart. But I wonder at your saying that it is in response to their wisdom. However, tell me what wisdom is and what sort of wisdom you mean.”
[3] To this the wives replied with annoyance, “You think we do not know what wisdom is and what sort of wisdom we mean, even though we continually reflect on it in our husbands and daily learn it from their mouths. Indeed, we wives think about the state of our husbands from morning to evening, with scarcely any time intervening in a day when this is interrupted or in which our instinctive thought is entirely withdrawn or gone from them. Our husbands in contrast spend very little time in the course of a day thinking about our state. As a result we know what sort of wisdom in them finds delight in us. Our husbands call this wisdom a spiritual-rational wisdom and a spiritual-moral one. Spiritual-rational wisdom, they say, is a matter of the intellect and its intellectual concepts, while spiritual-moral wisdom is a matter of the will and its mode of life. Yet they join the two together and regard them as one; and they maintain that the pleasant delights of this wisdom are transposed from their minds into delights in our hearts, and from our hearts back to their hearts, so that these return to the wisdom from which they originated.”
[4] I then asked whether they knew anything more about this wisdom in their husbands – “wisdom,” I said, “which finds delight in you.”
“We do,” they said. “It is a spiritual wisdom, and from that a rational and moral one. Spiritual wisdom is to acknowledge the Lord our Savior as God of heaven and earth, and through the Word and discourses from it to acquire from Him truths connected with the Church, from which comes a spiritual rationality; and in addition to live from Him according to those truths, from which comes a spiritual morality. Our husbands call these two the wisdom which in general works to produce truly conjugial love. We have also heard from them the reason, namely, that this wisdom opens the inner faculties of their mind and thus of their body, providing free passage from the firsts to the last of these for the stream of love, on whose flow, sufficiency and strength conjugial love depends for its existence and life.
“As regards marriage in particular, the spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom of our husbands has as its end and goal to love only their wives and to rid themselves of all desire for other women. Moreover, to the extent they achieve this, to that extent that love is heightened in degree and perfected in quality, and the more clearly and keenly do we then feel matching delights in us corresponding to the contented pleasures of our husbands’ affections and the pleasant exaltations of their thoughts.”
[5] I asked them next whether they knew how the communication took place.
They said, “All conjunction by love requires action, reception, and reaction. The state of our love and its delights is the agent or that which acts. The state of our husbands’ wisdom is the recipient or that which receives. And this same wisdom is also the reagent or that which reacts in accordance with their reception. This reaction is then perceived by us with feelings of delight in our hearts according to our state and the measure in which it is continually open and ready to receive those elements which in some way are connected with and so emanate from virtue in our husbands, thus which in some way are connected with and so emanate from the final state of love in us.”
At that point they also inserted, “Take care you do not interpret the delights we have mentioned to mean the end delights of conjugial love. We never talk about these, but only about the delights of our hearts which constantly correspond to the state of wisdom in our husbands.”
[6] After that there appeared in the distance what looked like a dove in flight with a leaf from a tree in its mouth; but as it drew near, instead of a dove we saw a little boy with a piece of paper in his hand. Coming over to us then, he held it out to me and said, “Read it in the presence of these maidens of the spring.”
So I read the following:
Tell the inhabitants of the earth among whom you live that there is such a thing as truly conjugial love, offering a million delights scarcely any of which are yet known to the world. But they will be discovered when the church betroths itself to her Lord and becomes His bride and wife.
Then I asked the wives, “Why did the boy call you ‘maidens of the spring’?”
“We are called maidens when we sit by this spring,” they replied, “because we are forms of affection for the truths of our husbands’ wisdom; and an affection for truth in form is termed a maiden. The spring likewise symbolizes the truth of wisdom, and the rose garden we are sitting next to its delights.”
[7] One of the seven wives then wove a garland of roses; and sprinkling it with water from the spring, she placed it over the cap the boy had on, fitting it around his little head and saying, “Receive the delights of intelligence. Your cap, you see, symbolizes intelligence, and the garland from this rose garden its delights.”
Thus adorned the boy then departed, and in the distance he looked once more like a dove in flight, but this time with a little crown on its head.
Several days later I again saw the same seven wives in a rose garden, but in a different one from the one previously. It was a magnificent garden, the like of which I had never seen before. It was laid out almost in a circle, and the roses in it formed a kind of rainbow-like arc. Purple-colored roses or flowers formed its outmost ring; golden-yellow ones the next ring in; dark-blue ones the ring inside that; and bluish-green or bright-green ones the inmost ring. And enclosed within that rainbow-like rose garden was a little pool of clear water.
Those seven wives, previously called maidens of the spring, were sitting there, and seeing me at my window they again called me over. Then, when I arrived, they said, “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful on earth?”
“Never,” I said.
So they said, “A marvel like this is created by the Lord in instant, and it represents a new development on earth, for everything created by the Lord represents something. But divine if you can what that is. We are guessing that it is the delights of conjugial love.”
[2] On hearing this I said, “What are the delights of conjugial love, of which you spoke with so much wisdom and also so much eloquence last time? After I left you, I related what you said to wives living in our world, and I told them, ‘Having now been instructed, I know that you feel delights in your hearts arising from your conjugial love, which you are able to communicate to your husbands in accordance with their wisdom. I also know that from morning to evening you therefore continually contemplate your husbands with the eyes of your spirit and consider how to turn and guide their hearts to becoming wise, in order that you may realize those delights.’ I further reported what you meant by wisdom, saying that it is a spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom, and that as regards marriage it is to love only one’s wife and to rid oneself of all desire for other women.
“But to this the wives in our world responded with laughter, saying, ‘What are you talking about? What you have said is preposterous. We do not know what conjugial love is. If our husbands experience anything of it, still we do not. How then do its delights originate with us? Indeed, when it comes to the delights which you call the end delights, we sometimes resist vehemently, for to us they are repugnant, in almost the same way as acts of rape. In fact, if you look, you will not see one sign of any such love in our faces. Therefore you are either talking nonsense or joking if, like those seven wives of yours, you too say that we think about our husbands from morning to evening and continually give attention to their wishes and pleasures, in order that we may gain from them delights such as those!’
“I have retained from the responses of those wives these declarations, to report them to you, since they call into dispute and even more entirely contradict the discourse I heard from you by the spring, which I listened to so eagerly and also believed.”
[3] To this the wives sitting in the rose garden replied, “Dear friend, you do not know the wisdom and prudence of wives, because they hide it altogether from men and keep it hidden precisely in order to be loved by them. For every man who is not spiritually rational and moral but only naturally so possesses a coldness towards his wife, such a coldness being inherent in him in his inmost elements. This coldness a wise and prudent wife acutely and keenly notices, and she then conceals her conjugial love, withdrawing into her heart so much of it and hiding it there so deeply that not the least bit of it appears in her face, her tone of voice, or gesture. She does this, because to the extent her love appears, to that extent a man’s coldness with respect to marriage pours forth from the inmost elements of his mind where it resides and descends into its outmost expressions, producing a total frigidity in the body and an urge to separate himself therefore from the bed and bedroom.”
[4] I asked them then, “What causes such coldness, which you call coldness with respect to marriage.”
“It comes from a lack of rationality on their part in matters of the spirit. Every man who is irrational in matters of the spirit is inmostly cold to his wife and inmostly warm toward harlots. And because conjugial love and licentious love are opposed to each other, it follows that conjugial love becomes cold whenever licentious love is warm. Then, when coldness reigns in a man, he cannot endure any feeling of love or even therefore any whisper of it from his wife. That is why a wife so wisely and prudently conceals it; and to the extent she does this by denying and resisting, to that extent a wanton atmosphere flows in which revives and restores the man’s interest. As a result the wife of a man like that does not experience any delights of the heart such as we do, but only physical gratifications, which on the man’s part have to be termed pleasures of insanity, because they are the pleasures of a licentious love.
[5] “Every chaste wife loves her husband, even a husband who is unchaste; but because wisdom is the only quality that receives her love, therefore a wife spends every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, at least to the point that he does not desire any other women but her. This she accomplishes in a thousand ways, taking especial care that none of these ways be detected by her husband; for she well knows that love cannot be compelled, but is subtly infused in a state of freedom. For that reason it is granted to women to discern from sight, hearing and touch their husbands’ every state of mind, while it is not granted to men conversely to discern any of their wives’ states of mind.
[6] “A chaste wife can look at her husband with a stern expression, speak to him in a sharp voice, and even be angry at him and fight with him, and yet at the same time in her heart cherish a gentle and tender love for him. The object, however, of these expressions of anger and concealments of love is wisdom and a consequent reception of love on the part of her husband, as is clearly apparent from how quickly she can be placated. Wives furthermore have such ways of concealing the love implanted in their heart and marrows in order by these means to keep a man’s coldness with respect to marriage from breaking out in him and extinguishing even the fire of his licentious heat, the result of which would be to turn him from green wood into a dry stick.”
[7] After those seven wives made these statements and a number of others like them, their husbands came with clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which had a delicious flavor and some an offensive one. So the wives said, “Why did you bring bad or wild grapes, too?”
“Because,” replied their husbands, “your souls being united with ours, we perceived in our souls that you were speaking with this man here about truly conjugial love, saying that its delights are delights of wisdom, and also about licentious love, saying that its delights are pleasures of insanity. The grapes with the delicious flavor are the first kind of delights, while the offensive-tasting or wild grapes are the second kind.”
The husbands then confirmed what their wives had said, adding that the pleasures of insanity appear in outward respects similar to the delights of wisdom, but not in their inner qualities – “just like the good and bad grapes that we brought,” they said. “For both chaste and unchaste men are capable of a similar wisdom in outward respects, but in its inner qualities their wisdom is entirely different.”
[8] After that the little boy came again with a piece of paper in his hand, and he held it out to me, saying, “Read.”
So I read as follows:
Be advised, all who read this, that the delights of conjugial love ascend up to the highest heaven, and on the way and in that heaven they join with the delights of all heavenly loves, and so enter into their felicity, which lasts to eternity. That is because the delights of that love are also delights of wisdom.
Be advised, too, that the pleasures of licentious love descend down to the lowest hell, and on the way and in that hell they join with the pleasures of all hellish loves, and so enter into their misery, which consists in a frustration of all the heart’s delights. That is because the pleasures of that love are also pleasures of insanity.
The husbands subsequently departed with their wives, and accompanying the little boy as far as the path he took to ascend to heaven, they discovered that the society he had been sent from was a society of the New Heaven, the heaven with which the New Church on earth will be affiliated.
We take up betrothals and weddings here, and also the formalities surrounding them, treating them primarily from the perspective of the intellect and its reason. We treat them from that perspective because the matters written in this book have as their object to enable the reader to see truths in the light of his rationality and so give assent; for thus his spirit is convinced, and matters of which the spirit is convinced are accorded a standing above those which enter without the reason’s being consulted, as a result of someone else’s say-so and faith in his authority. Indeed, the latter do not penetrate the head any deeper than the memory, and there they become mingled together with misconceptions and falsities, so as to have a standing below rational matters which are matters of the understanding. Everyone can speak in consequence of these as though in accordance with reason, but in a backwards fashion; for he then thinks as a crab walks, with the sight following the tail. It is the other way around if he thinks in consequence of his understanding. Whenever he thinks in consequence of this, his rational sight selects appropriate matters from his memory and by them confirms in himself truth already seen.
[2] For that reason we consider in the present chapter a number of practices which are accepted customs. For example, that choosing whom to court is a prerogative of men; that parents should be consulted; that gifts should be given as pledges; that a marriage covenant should be established before the wedding; that this covenant should be sanctified by a priest; that a wedding should be celebrated; and so on. These and more are considered in order to enable a person to see in the light of his rationality that such practices are engraved on conjugial love as its prerequisites, which promote it and bring it to fulfillment.
[3] The sections into which this discussion is divided are, in order, the following:
(1) Choosing whom to court is a prerogative of the man, and not of the woman.
(2) The man ought to court the woman and ask her to marry him, and not the other way around.
(3) The woman ought to consult her parents or guardians and then deliberate in herself before giving consent.
(4) After she declares her consent, gifts should be given as pledges.
(5) Their agreement to marry should be affirmed and established by a formal betrothal.
(6) By betrothal each is made ready for conjugial love.
(7) By betrothal the mind of one is joined to the mind of the other, so that a marriage of the spirit takes place before a marriage of the body.
(8) This happens in the case of people who think chastely in regard to marriage, not so in the case of those who think unchastely in regard to it.
(9) During the time of their betrothal it is not lawful for them to be joined physically.
(10) After the period of their betrothal has been completed, the wedding should take place.
(11) Before the celebration of the wedding, a marriage covenant should be established in the presence of witnesses.
(12) The marriage should be solemnized by a priest.
(13) The wedding should be celebrated with festivity.
(14) After the wedding the marriage of the spirit becomes also one of the body and thus complete.
(15) This is the order and its steps by which conjugial love develops, from its first warmth to its first fire.
(16) If conjugial love is hastened prematurely without an orderly development and its proper steps, it burns out the marrows and dies.
(17) States of mind progress in a sequential development, and in each partner these progressive states flow into the state of their marriage – though with one progression in the case of spiritual people and another in the case of people who are natural.
(18) For everywhere one finds a sequential order and a concurrent order, and the concurrent order evolves from the sequential order and in accordance with it.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
As regards the first reason, that choosing whom to court is a prerogative of men because they were born to be forms of the intellect – the reason is that the intellect can discern congruities and incongruities and distinguish between them, and with judgment make a suitable choice. It is different in the case of women. Because they were born to be forms of love, they do not have the same clarity of sight, and decisions to marry would in their case be based only on inclinations of their love. Even if they have from men the knowledge to distinguish between men, their love is still swayed by appearances.
[2] As regards the second reason why choosing whom to court is a prerogative of men and not women – the reason is that it is inherent in men commonly to love the opposite sex in general and in women to love one of the opposite sex, and those who love the opposite sex in general are able to freely look about and also make a free decision. It is not the same for women, who have implanted in them to love one of the opposite sex. To confirm this, ask, if you like, the men among the people you meet about monogamous marriage and polygamous marriage, and you will seldom find any man who will not answer in favor of polygamous marriage, which also means a love for the opposite sex in general. On the other hand, ask women about these two kinds of marriage, and almost all, other than prostitutes, will reject polygamous marriages, which is why we say that it is in women to love one of the opposite sex, thus to feel conjugial love.
[3] As for the third reason, it is evident in itself that it is not unbecoming for men to speak of love and to declare it, while it is unbecoming for women to do so. It follows for this reason as well that it is for men to declare themselves, and if to declare themselves, so also to choose whom to court.
We say that women have the option of choosing one of a number of suitors, which is something everyone knows. But this kind of choice is a restricted and limited one, while that of men is broad and not limited.
Furthermore, men do not have any innate love for the opposite sex, as evidenced earlier,* and without that love, they lack an inner enjoyment of life. Consequently, to enhance their life by that love, it is incumbent on men to make appeals to women, by politely, respectfully and humbly courting them and asking them to grant that sweet addition to their lives. The beauty of that sex in face, form and manners, surpassing that of men, also adds itself as an obligation of the vow.
* See no. 161:2.
[2] Nevertheless, a daughter ought to deliberate on such a matter in herself before giving consent, and this in order not to be swept against her will into wedlock with a man she does not love. For in such a case, consent on her part is lacking, and yet it is consent which makes a marriage and which initiates her spirit into conjugial love. Consent that is unwillingly given or coerced does not initiate her spirit, though it may the body, and in that case it turns any chastity residing in the spirit into lust, by which conjugial love is corrupted at its first warmth.
These gifts are affirmations, because they are tokens of their mutual consent. So when an agreement is reached between two parties, people say, “Give me something in token of it;” and when two have promised themselves in marriage and affirmed their mutual promise by gifts, they are said to be pledged and thus sworn.
[2] These gifts are testifications, because as pledges they are like continual witnesses visibly testifying to their love for each other, being therefore also reminders of it, especially if they are rings, lockets or pins which are worn openly to the sight. One sees in them a kind of representative reflection of the intentions of the future bridegroom and bride.
These pledges are first favors, because conjugial love includes a promise of everlasting favor, of which these gifts are the first fruits.
These gifts are the treasures of love, as everyone knows, for the mind is gladdened at the sight of them; and because they reflect their love, these favors are dearer and more precious than any other gifts, as though they held their hearts within.
[3] Since these pledges are given in support of conjugial love, the giving of gifts following declarations of consent was an accepted practice among ancient peoples, and on their being accepted the couples were declared betrothed. It should be known, however, that it is a matter of individual choice whether to bestow these gifts before a formal betrothal or after it. If they are given before, they are affirmations and testifications of a couple’s consent to the betrothal; if given afterward, they are affirmations and testifications also of their consent to the wedding.
1. To encourage a mutual inclination of the couple’s souls to each other following betrothal.
2. To encourage a determination of a general love for the opposite sex to the one of the sex.
3. To encourage a mutual recognition of each other’s inward affections and a conjunction of them through appeals to them in a state of the inner gladness of love.
4. To encourage a marriage of the couple’s spirits and a closer and closer affiliation of these.
5. To encourage in this way a proper progression of conjugial love from its first warmth to its nuptial flame.
6. Consequently, to encourage a just and orderly progression and development of conjugial love from its spiritual origin.
The state of betrothal may be likened to a state of spring preceding summer, and the inner enjoyments of that state to the flowerings of trees before their production of fruit. Since the beginnings and progressions of conjugial love develop in sequence in order for them to flow into the fruitful love which begins with the wedding, therefore betrothals take place in heaven as well.
To those considerations we should add also the following, that by the order engraved on it truly conjugial love ascends and descends. It ascends from its first warmth progressively upward towards people’s souls in an effort to form conjunctions there, and this by continually more interior openings of their minds. There is, moreover, no love which strives for these openings more intensely, or which opens the interior recesses of minds more forcefully and adeptly, than conjugial love; for it is the soul in each which impels it. On the other hand, in the very same moments that this love ascends toward the soul, it also descends toward the body and invests itself in it.
[2] People should know, however, that conjugial love is of the same character in its descent as it is in the height to which it ascends. If it soars aloft, it descends chaste; but if it does not soar aloft, it descends unchaste. That is because the lower elements of the mind are unchaste, while its higher elements are chaste; for the lower elements of the mind cling to the body, whereas the higher elements divorce themselves from such things. (But for more on this subject, see no. 305 below.)
From these few considerations it can be seen that the mind of each is prepared for conjugial love by betrothal, although in various ways depending on their affections.
[2] It is entirely different with unchaste people, however, who are people who do not think of marriage and its sanctity in accordance with religion. In their case they experience a marriage of the body and not one of the spirit. If during the state of betrothal some trace of a marriage of the spirit appears, still, even if this ascends through an elevation of their thoughts concerning it, it nevertheless falls back into lusts which arise from the flesh in the will of the flesh, thus casting itself headlong from the unchaste elements there into the body and polluting the outmost expressions of its love with a beguiling ardor. So it is that as suddenly as love blazed in the beginning, just as suddenly it burns out and vanishes into the coldness of winter, thus quickening a waning of its ability. The state of betrothal in their case does little more than to incite them to fulfill their lusts with lascivious gratifications and by these contaminate the conjugial relationship of love.
To explain this, there are in human minds three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the intermediate one spiritual, and the lowest one natural. A person dwells by birth in the lowest region, but he ascends into the next higher one, called spiritual, by living according to truths of religion, and into the highest one by achieving a marriage of love and wisdom.
All kinds of evil and lascivious lusts reside in the lowest region, which is called natural. In the next higher region, however, which is called spiritual, there are no evil and lascivious lusts, for this is the region into which a person is led by the Lord when he is born anew. And in the highest region, which is called celestial, one finds conjugial chastity surrounded by its love. A person is raised into this last region by a love of serving useful ends, and because marriage serves the most excellent ends of all, by truly conjugial love.
[2] One can see in summary from this that, from the first beginnings of its warmth, conjugial love has to be raised from the lowest region into a higher one in order to become chaste and to thus descend from a chaste origin through the intermediate and lowest regions into the body. When this is the case, its descending chastity purifies the lowest region of its unchaste elements. This in turn causes the outmost expression of that love to become also chaste.
Now, if the sequential and orderly development of this love is hastened prematurely by physical conjunctions before the proper time, it follows that the person is acting from the lowest region which by birth is unchaste. It is a familiar experience that this occasions and gives rise to coldness toward the marriage and indifference combined with loathing toward the other partner.
But still, various differences occur in the outcomes of premature conjunctions, likewise in the outcomes of an excessive prolongation as well as of an excessive shortening of the time of betrothal. However, because of their number and diversities, these differences cannot easily be enumerated.
1. A wedding marks the end of the former state inaugurated by betrothal, which was primarily a state of the spirit, and the beginning of the following state about to be inaugurated by marriage, which is a state simultaneously of the spirit and body; for the spirit then descends into the body and expresses itself there. Therefore on that day they put off the state and also the name of a couple engaged or promised, and take on the state and name of married partners and a couple united in the flesh.
2. A wedding introduces and initiates them into the new state, the effect of which is to encourage the young woman to become a wife and the young man a husband, that the two may become one flesh. These goals are achieved when they are united by love through its ultimate expressions. We have already shown in previous discussions that marriage actually transforms a maiden into a wife and a youth into a husband,* and also that marriage unites a couple into a single human form so that they are no longer two but one flesh.**
3. A wedding guides them to a complete separation of love for the opposite sex from conjugial love, a separation that is achieved when through full opportunity for conjunction the love of the one becomes exclusively devoted to the love of the other.
4. It seems in appearance as though weddings serve only to demarcate the point between the two aforementioned states, and thus that they are simply a formality which may be omitted. But there is in them also this further and essential element, and that is that the new state referred to must then be entered into by covenant, with the consent of the couple declared in the presence of witnesses, and that it must also be solemnized by a priest, among other things, which serve to firmly establish it.
Since weddings include elements that are essential, and since a legitimate marriage is not formed until after them, therefore weddings are celebrated also in heaven, as may be seen above in no. 21, and after that in nos. 27-41.
* See, for example, no. 199.
** See, for example, nos. 177, 178.
In sum, a prenuptial covenant makes plain the requirements of truly conjugial love, establishes these, and binds libertines to complying with them.
In addition, such a covenant establishes the legitimacy of any children they produce, and legally secures for the children a right to inherit their parents’ possessions.
Now, because the ordained clergy on earth administers matters which reflect the priesthood lodged in the Lord, that is, which reflect His love, thus also matters which require His blessing, it follows that marriages ought to be solemnized by His ministers. And because His ministers are also then the chief witnesses, a couple’s consent to the covenant ought to be heard, approved, ratified and thus firmly established by them as well.
It follows as a conclusion from this that the mind continually flows into the body and directs the body toward activities in harmony with it and its development. Accordingly, viewed in themselves, human bodies are simply replicas of minds outwardly organized to carry out the bidding of the soul.
This much is said by way of introduction to make perceptible why it is that a couple’s minds or spirits should be united to each other and as though married first, before they are united also in respect to the body; namely, that the marriage may be a marriage of the spirit when it becomes one of the body; consequently, that the partners may love each other because of the spirit and in body as a result of that.
[2] From this perspective let us now consider marriage. When conjugial love joins a couple’s minds and molds them into a marriage, it also then joins and molds their bodies for it; for as said, the form of the mind is also, inwardly, the form of the body, with the single difference, that the form of the body is outwardly organized to carry out the ends to which its interior form is directed by the mind. When the mind has been molded by conjugial love, moreover, not only is it inwardly present in the whole body so as to radiate throughout, but it is inwardly present further in the organs dedicated to reproduction, which are situated in their own area below the other areas of the body. In people who are united by conjugial love, their cast of mind finds final expression there. Consequently the affections and thoughts of their minds are channeled to them. In this the operations of their minds differ from those arising from other loves, loves which do not extend to those organs.
It follows in conclusion from this that as conjugial love is in a couple’s minds or spirits, such is it inwardly in the organs belonging to it.
Besides, it is evident in itself that a marriage of the spirit after the wedding becomes also one of the body, thus complete. Consequently, that if the marriage is chaste in spirit and draws its quality from its sanctity in the spirit, it is of the same character when it comes into its complete expression in the body; and of the opposite character if the marriage in spirit is unchaste.
[2] Every progression develops from initial elements to concluding ones; and the last elements become the first in some succeeding progression. So also, all the elements in an intermediate progression are the concluding elements of a prior progression and the first elements of a subsequent one; and thus do ends continually proceed through causes to effects. This can be demonstrated and illustrated satisfactorily to the sight of reason from phenomena recognized and visible in the world. But because we are dealing here with the proper order in which love progresses from its first point to its realization, we pass these considerations by and say on the subject only that as the development of this love is from its first warmth to its first fire, such is for the most part the development of it and the way it progresses afterwards. For in that progression what the first warmth was like within unveils itself. And if it was chaste, its chastity becomes stronger in its progressions. But if it was unchaste, its lack of chastity increases as it progresses, until it is stripped of any chastity it had adopted outwardly from the time of betrothal and failed to have within.
(For more on this subject see no. 305 above.)
[2] The idea that all the elements that go before in people’s minds form progressive series, that the series are tied together, one alongside another and one after another, and that these together form the concluding result, is something as yet unknown in the world. But because it is a truth communicated from heaven, we present it here. For it shows how influx operates and the nature of its concluding result, in which the elements of the progressively formed series as just described come together and coexist.
It can be seen from this that states of mind progress in a sequential development, and that in married partners these progressive states flow into the state of their marriage. After they are married, however, the partners are totally unaware of the successive elements that have been implanted and are present in their spirits from preceding states. But yet it is those elements which shape their conjugial love and form the state of their minds from which they comport themselves with each other.
[3] It follows that one state is formed from one progression in the case of spiritual people, and another in the case of people who are natural, because spiritual people proceed in a proper and orderly progression, and natural people in an improper and disorderly one. For spiritual people look to the Lord, and the Lord oversees and guides an orderly progression. But natural people look to themselves, and so proceed in an inverted progression. Consequently their married state is inwardly full of elements that are unchaste; and the more numerous the unchaste elements, the more numerous their states of coldness, and the more numerous their states of coldness, the more numerous the obstructions to their intimacy of life, which block up its passage and dry up its source.
People know the difference between a sequential arrangement and a concurrent one, but they do not know that any instance of concurrent order evolves from a sequential one and in accordance with it. It is at the same time very difficult to present to human perception how sequential elements project themselves into concurrent ones, and the kind of order they form there, since the learned do not have among them as yet any theory serving to explain the concept. So, because an initial idea of this secret cannot be conveyed in a few words, and to interject one at length here would distract people’s minds from a more uncluttered view of conjugial love, the following may suffice to illustrate the matter. These brief observations concerning the two kinds of order, sequential and concurrent, and the influx of the first into the second, were presented in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, which we repeat from there:*
[2] Everywhere in heaven and in the world we find a sequential order and a concurrent order. In sequential order one thing…follows after another from the highest elements to the lowest. In concurrent order, however, one thing exists alongside another from the inmost elements to the outmost. Sequential order is like a column with descending levels from top to bottom, while concurrent order is like a continuous piece of work…from center to surface….
…sequential order becomes concurrent in its concluding element…in the following way. The highest elements in the sequential order become the inmost elements of the concurrent order; and the lowest elements in the sequential order become the outmost elements of the concurrent order. It may be likened to a column with descending levels sinking down to become a continuous mass on the same plane.
That is how a concurrent arrangement is formed from sequential elements; and this in each and every thing of the spiritual world, and in each and every thing of the natural world.
See in that work nos. 38, 65; and still more on the same subject in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 205-229.
[3] It is similar with the sequential progression leading to marriage, and the concurrent set of elements in marriage; namely, that the latter results from the former and in accordance with it.
(One who is acquainted with the way sequential order flows into a concurrent one can understand why it is that angels are able to see all the thoughts and intentions of a person’s mind in his hand.** And also that wives sense their husband’s affections from the touch of the husbands’ hands upon their breasts – a phenomenon that has been mentioned several times in the narrative accounts.*** The reason is that the hands are a person’s terminal parts, into which the deliberations and resolutions of his mind are directed and where they form a concomitant presence. That too is why we find it said in the Word that this or that was written on the hands.****)
* I.e., from no. 38.
** Cf. no. 261:3 at the end.
*** See no. 155[r]:4. Other mentions of wives’ sensing from the touch of the hands refer to a wife’s doing so by touching her husband with her hand.
**** See Exodus 13:9,16; Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18; Isaiah 49:16; Revelation 13:16, 14:9, 20:4; also Job 31:7. Cf. Psalms 7:3, 24:4; also Job 11:14.
I once saw, not far from me, an atmospheric wonder. I saw a cloud break up into smaller clouds, some of them light blue, and some dark; and as I watched they seemed to be colliding into each other. Rays of light began to flash in streaks between them, appearing now as sharp as rapiers, now blunted like swords broken. One moment these streaks would race out to strike, the next moment retreat back, altogether like boxers. These different colored little clouds thus looked as though they were fighting with each other, but in sport.
Now because this phenomenon appeared not far from me, I raised my eyes and looked more intently; and I saw boys, young men and older men going into a house, which was built out of marble with a foundation of porphyry. It was over this house that that phenomenon was occurring.
I then spoke to one of the people going in and asked what was happening there.
To that he replied, “It is a school where young men are introduced into various matters having to do with wisdom.”
[2] Hearing this, and being in the spirit, that is, in a state like that of people in the spiritual world, who are called spirits and angels, I went in with them. And behold, in that school I saw up front a ceremonial chair; in the central part a number of benches; around the sides some more seats; and over the entrance a balcony. The ceremonial chair was for the young men when it became their turn to respond to the question that would then be put to them. The benches were for those who were there to listen. The seats along the sides were for those who had already answered wisely on previous occasions. And the balcony was for the older men who would be the referees and judges. In the middle of the balcony stood a dais, where a wise man sat whom they called Headmaster; it was he who posed the questions for the young men to respond to from the ceremonial chair.
So then, after all were assembled, the man rose from his dais and said, “Please give your reply now to the following question and explain it if you can: What is the soul, and what is the nature of it?”
[3] On hearing this they were all stunned and began to murmur. And some in the throng on the benches cried out, “What person, from the age of Saturn to our present time, has been able, by any deliberation of reason, to see and lay hold of what the soul is, not to mention what the nature of it is. Is this not beyond the realm of anyone’s understanding?”
However, to that the men in the balcony replied, “It is not beyond human understanding, but within its scope and ability to see. Just respond to the question.”
So the young men chosen to ascend the chair that day and respond to the question stood up. There were five of them, whom the older men had examined and found proficient in intelligence, and who were then sitting on long, cushioned seats to the sides of the ceremonial chair. Moreover, these afterwards ascended the chair in the order in which they were seated; and as each one ascended it, he would put on a tunic of opal-colored silk, and over that a gown of soft wool inwoven with flowers, and in addition a cap whose peak bore a rosette surrounded by little sapphires.
[4] Accordingly I saw the first one thus dressed ascend the chair. And he said, “What the soul is and what the nature of it is has not been revealed to anyone from the time of creation, being a secret locked away in repositories belonging to God alone. Only this much has been disclosed, that the soul dwells in a person like a queen. But where her court is, this a number of learned seers have guessed at. Some have supposed that it is located in the little protuberance between the cerebrum and cerebellum called the pineal gland. They have imagined the seat of the soul to be there on the ground that a person is governed in his entirety by the cerebrum and cerebellum, which in turn are directed by that gland; consequently that that which directs those two parts of the brain to its bidding also directs the entire person from head to heel.”
But he said, “Although this appeared as true or likely to many in the world, in a later age it was rejected as a fiction.”
[5] After he had spoken, he took off the gown, tunic and cap, and the second of the young men selected put them on and placed himself in the chair. His statement concerning the soul was as follows:
“No one, in all of heaven and in all the world, knows what the soul is and what the nature of it is. We know only that it exists, and that it exists in a person; but where is a matter of conjecture. This much is certain, that it exists in the head, since that is where the intellect thinks and where the will wills, and it is there in the face in the forepart of the head that a person’s five senses are located. Nothing else gives life to these but the soul which is seated somewhere inside the head. But where exactly its court is there I would not venture to say, though I have agreed at different times with those who assign it a seat in the three ventricles of the brain, with those put it in the corpora striata there, with those who put it in the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum, with those who put it in the cortical substance, and at times with those who put it in the dura mater; for arguments have not been lacking to prompt affirmative votes, so to speak, in support of each of these as the seat.
[6] “Some people have voted in favor of the three ventricles of the brain on the ground that they are receptacles of all the brain’s animating essences and fluids. Some have voted in favor of the corpora striata on the ground that they form the medulla through which the nerves exit and through which the cerebrum and cerebellum are continued into the spine, from which medulla and spine issue the fibers of which the whole body is woven. Some have voted in favor of the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum on the ground that it is a conglomeration and mass of all the fibers which constitute the initial elements of the entire person. Some have voted in favor of the cortical substance on the ground that this is where the first and last terminations of a person are, from which come the beginnings of all the fibers and thus of all sensations and movements. Still others have voted in favor of the dura mater on the ground that it is the overall covering of the entire brain, and extends from there by a kind of continuation around the heart and other internal organs of the body.
“For my part, I do not think any more of one theory than another. I leave it to you to please judge for yourselves and pick which is better.”
[7] So saying he descended from the chair and handed the tunic, gown and cap to the third one in line; and mounting the chair the third young man made the following response:
“What business do I have at my young age with so lofty a subject? I appeal to the learned gentlemen sitting here at the sides. I appeal to you wiser men in the balcony. Indeed, I appeal to the angels of the highest heaven. Can anyone, by any rational light of his own, gain for himself any idea of the soul?
“As for its seat in a person, however, concerning this I can, like the others, offer a speculation. And I speculate that it is in the heart and from that in the blood. I come to this speculation because the heart by its blood governs both body and head; for it sends out the great artery called the aorta to the whole of the body, and the arteries called the carotids to the whole of the head. It is universally agreed therefore that it is from the heart by means of the blood that the soul sustains, nourishes and animates the entire organic system of both body and head.
“Adding to the plausibility of this assertion is the fact that the Holy Scripture so often mentions the soul and heart – as for example that you should love God with all your soul and with all your heart, and that God creates in man a new soul and new heart (Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 26:16; Jeremiah 32:41; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30,33; Luke 10:27; and elsewhere*); and saying straight out that the blood is the soul of the flesh (Leviticus 17:11,14).”
When they heard this, some of them lifted up their voice, saying, “Masterful! Masterful!” – they being members of the clergy.
[8] After that the fourth in line took from him the vestments and put them on, and having placed himself in the chair, said:
“I, too, suspect that no one is possessed of such fine and polished genius that he can discern what the soul is and what the nature of it is. I judge accordingly that anyone who tries to investigate it only wastes the cleverness of his intellect in vain endeavors. Nevertheless, from childhood I have maintained a belief in an opinion held by the ancients, that a person’s soul dwells in his whole being and in every part of it, thus that it dwells both in the head and its individual parts and in the body and its individual parts; and that it was a conceit invented by modern thinkers to assign it a seat here or there and not everywhere. The soul is furthermore a spiritual essence, to which is ascribed neither dimension nor location but indwelling and repleteness. Who, too, does not mean life when he refers to the soul? And does life not exist in the whole and in every part?”
At these words, many in the hall expressed approval.
[9] After him the fifth speaker arose, and outfitted in the same regalia, he presented from the chair the following statement:
“I do not take the time to say where the soul is – whether it resides in any one part or everywhere in the whole; but from my fund and store of knowledge I will declare my mind on the question of what the soul is and what the nature of it is. No one thinks of the soul except as a pure entity which may be likened to ether, air or wind, in which the vital force is from the rationality which human beings have over animals. I base this opinion on the fact that when a person expires or breathes his last, he is said to give up the ghost or soul. For this reason the soul that lives after death is also believed to be such an exhalation, in which is the cognitive life which we call the soul. What else can the soul be?
“However, because I heard you men in the balcony say that the question of the soul – what it is and what the nature of it is – is not beyond human understanding but within its scope and ability to see, I ask and implore you to lay open this eternal mystery yourselves.”
[10] At that the older men in the balcony looked at the headmaster who had posed the question. And understanding from the motions of their heads that they wished him to go down and explain, he immediately descended from his dais, crossed the hall and placed himself in the chair. Then stretching out his hand there he said:
“Pay attention, please. Who does not believe the soul to be the inmost and finest essence of a person? And what is an essence without a form other than a figment of the imagination? The soul therefore is a form; but what the nature of the form is remains to be told. It is a form embracing all elements of love and all elements of wisdom. We call all the elements of love affections; and we call all the elements of wisdom perceptions. These perceptions, flowing from the affections and thus together with them, constitute a single form, which contains an endless number of constituent elements in such an order, series and connection that they may be said to be one and indivisible. They may be said to be one and indivisible because nothing can be taken from the whole or added to it without changing its character. What else is the human soul but such a form? Are not all the elements of love and all the elements of wisdom in a person the essential constituents of that form, these being in the soul, and in the head and body from the soul?
[11] “You are called spirits and angels, and in the world you believed that spirits and angels were like bits of wind or ether and so were disembodied minds and hearts. But now you clearly see that you are truly, really and actually whole people – people who in the world lived and thought in a material body, and who knew then that the material body does not live and think, but the spiritual essence in that body, which you called the soul whose form you did not know. And yet now you have seen it and do see it. You are all souls, whose immortality you have heard, thought, spoken and written so much about. And it is because you are forms of love and wisdom from God that you can never hereafter die.
“So then, the soul is a human form, from which nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, and it is the inmost form in all the forms of the entire person. Moreover, because the forms which exist outwardly take both their essence and their form from the inmost one, therefore you, as you appear to yourselves and to us, are souls.
“The soul, in short, is the person himself, because it is the innermost person. Consequently its form is a fully and perfectly human form. Yet it is not life, but the most immediate recipient vessel of life from God and thus the dwelling place of God.”
[12] At this many in the hall applauded; but some said, “We will have to think about it.”
I then departed for home; and lo, over that school, in place of the earlier phenomenon, I saw a white cloud without the rays or streaks of light combating with each other. Then, penetrating through the roof, the cloud entered the hall and lighted up the walls; and I heard that they saw inscriptions, and included among them also this one:
Jehovah God breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life,** and the man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)
* E.g. Deuteronomy 30:6; Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 11:19.
** Literally, soul of life. Hebrew: breath, spirit.
Walking once with tranquil heart in a pleasantly peaceful state of mind, I saw in the distance a wood, which had in the midst of it an enclosed path leading to a little palace; and I saw young women and men and husbands and wives going in. I, too, in the spirit went over there, and I asked one of the keepers standing at the entrance of the path whether I might go in as well. He stared at me; and so I asked, “Why are you staring at me?”
“I am examining you,” he replied, “to see whether the pleasant state of peace reflected in your face draws any of its character from a pleasant delight in conjugial love. After this path there is a little garden, and in the middle of it a house with a newly married couple in it. Their friends are coming here today to wish them happiness and joy. I do not know the people I am allowing to enter, but I was told I would recognize them from their faces. If I saw in them a delight in conjugial love, I was to let them in, and no one else.”
Every angel can see from others’ faces what the delights of their heart are; and because I was thinking about conjugial love, it was a delight in that love that he saw in my face. This contemplation of mine shone from my eyes and lent an inner glow to my face, so that he told me I might go in.
[2] The enclosed path through which I went was lined with fruit trees joined together by interlocking branches, thus forming an unbroken wall of trees on either side. Through this pathway I entered the little garden, which exhaled a pleasant fragrance from its bushes and flowers. The bushes and flowers grew in pairs; and I learned that gardens of this sort appear around houses where weddings are being or have been celebrated, on which account they are called wedding gardens.
After that I went into the house, and there I saw the married couple holding each other by the hand and speaking to each other out of truly conjugial love. Moreover, from their faces I was given to see then an image of conjugial love, and from their conversation, its vibrancy.
Later, when I among many others had expressed my prayers for them and wished them happiness and joy, I went out into the wedding garden; and I saw on the right side of it a group of young men, to which all who left the house went hurrying over. They all hurried over there because they were having a conversation about conjugial love, and this conversation drew the hearts of all with a kind of hidden force to it. I listened then to a wise person in the group speaking about that love, and what I heard was in summary the following:
[3] “The Lord’s Divine providence is most specific and therefore most universal in connection with marriages and in its operation in marriages in heaven, because all blessings of heaven flow from the delights of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a sweetly gushing spring. It is therefore provided by the Lord that conjugial pairs be born, and they are raised and continually prepared for their marriages, neither the boy nor the girl being aware of the fact. Then, after a period of time, the girl – now a marriageable young woman – and the boy – now a young man able 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 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 and as if by instinct, when we mean by Divine providence, because when one is unaware that it is Divine providence, that is how it appears.”
With respect to his statement that conjugial pairs are born, raised and prepared for their marriages without their knowing, the speaker supported it by the conjugial similarity visible in the faces of a couple, also by the innermost and eternal union of their hearts and minds, neither of which would be possible the way they are in heaven unless foreseen and provided by the Lord.
[4] Having said this – to which the group responded with applause – the wise person speaking went on to say that there is a conjugial element in the smallest particulars in every person, both male and female; only that the conjugial element in the male and the conjugial element in the female are not the same, but the conjugial element of the male possesses a capacity for conjunction with the conjugial element of the female, and vice versa, even in the least particulars.
This he showed by the marriage of will and understanding in every individual, the two of which operate together in the least constituents of the mind and in the least constituents of the body; from which it can be seen that there is a conjugial element in each component, even the least. “This is also made evident,” he said, “from the composite organs of the body which are formed from its elemental constituents. We find, for example, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two cheeks, two lips, two arms and hands, two legs, two feet; and inside the body, two hemispheres of the brain, two ventricles of the heart, two lungs, two kidneys, two testicles. Even when an organ is not paired, still it exhibits a division into two parts. The reason there are these sets of two is that one is connected with the will and the other with the intellect, which operate in conjunction with each other so marvelously that they give the appearance of being one. Thus the two eyes produce one power of sight, the two ears one power of hearing, the two nostrils one sense of smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one labor, the two feet one gait, the two hemispheres of the brain one habitation of the mind, the two chambers of the heart one life of the body through the blood, the two lungs one respiration, and so on. Only that in the case of a married couple, the masculine element and feminine element united by truly conjugial love produce one life that is fully human.”
[5] As he was saying this, a shaft of lightning appeared in the sky to our right having a red color, and another shaft of lightning to our left that was white, neither of them very intense. These entered through our eyes into our minds and illumined them as well. Then, following these, we heard the sound of thunder – in actuality a low murmur coming from the angelic heaven and growing louder in its descent.
Hearing it, and having seen the lightning, the wise person speaking said, “These are meant for me as a signal and admonition to add to my discussion something further, that in the twinned pairs of organs I have mentioned, the one on the right symbolizes the good connected with the two, and the one on the left the truth connected with them; and that this is owing to the marriage of good and truth engraved on each person in his whole being and in his every least part, good having relation to the will and truth to the understanding, and the two together to a union of these. For this reason, in heaven ‘the right eye’ means the good connected with sight, and ‘the left eye’ the truth connected with it. So, too, ‘the right ear’ means the good connected with hearing, and ‘the left ear’ the truth connected with it. Similarly, ‘the right hand’ means the good connected with a person’s strength, and ‘the left hand’ the truth connected with it. And so on with the rest of these twinned pairs.
“Moreover, because ‘right’ and ‘left’ have these symbolic associations, the Lord said:
If your right eye causes you to slip, pluck it out…. And if your right hand causes you to slip, cut it off….*
“He meant by this that if something good is turned to evil, it should be cast away.
“For the same reason He also told His disciples to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and when they did so, they caught a great number of fish.** And by this He meant they should teach the good of charity, and by doing so would gather in people.”
[6] Following these remarks, the two shafts of lightning appeared again, still less intense than before. And we saw then that the lightning on the left drew the whiteness of its light from the reddish fire of the lightning on the right.
Seeing this, the speaker said, “It is a sign from heaven confirming what I have said, because something fiery in heaven means something good, and something white there means something true. As for our having seen that the lightning on the left drew the whiteness of its light from the reddish fire of the lightning on the right, this is visible evidence that the whiteness of light or light itself is nothing other than the luminance of fire.”
At the end of this discourse, all in the group were fired with a joyful state of goodness and truth inspired by the shafts of lightning and what they had been told concerning them, and in this state they departed for home.
* Matthew 5:29,30.
** John 21:6.
It may possibly come into consideration whether conjugial love, which is a love between one man and one wife, can, after the death of a partner, be severed, or transferred, or overlaid with another. Also, whether second marriages share any common characteristic with polygamy, and thus whether they may be termed a serial form of polygamy. And many other questions besides, which in the minds of reasoners tend regularly to intervene with one moral scruple after another. Therefore, to inform masters of casuistry who reason in darkness about such marriages and to enable them to see some light, I thought it would be useful to present to their judgment the following points on the subject, which are:
(1) Whether to marry again after the death of a partner depends on the conjugial love had previously.
(2) It depends also on the status of the marriage in which they had been living.
(3) In the case of people who did not have truly conjugial love, nothing hinders or prevents them from marrying again.
(4) People who before had lived with their partners in a state of truly conjugial love do not wish to marry again, except for reasons dissociated from conjugial love.
(5) The marriage of an inexperienced man with a virgin differs in state from the marriage of an inexperienced man with a widow.
(6) The marriage of a widower with a virgin likewise differs in state from the marriage of a widower with a widow.
(7) The various and diverse natures of these marriages in respect to the love in them and its character are altogether beyond number.
(8) The state of a widow is harder than the state of a widower.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
The reason is clear to see, because conjugial love is in the same measure a conjunction of minds, and the conjunction remains during the bodily life of the one after the passing of the other. This conjunction holds any inclination to remarry in balance as though in a scale, and tips the scale its way to the degree that true love has been embraced. (Though because rarely does anyone today progress more than a few steps towards such a love, therefore the tongue of the balance for the most part rises to the point of equilibrium, and wavering there, goes over to the other side, that is, to the side of remarriage.)
[2] The converse is the case with people whose love before in the previous marriage departed from truly conjugial love. That is because a departure from it is in the same measure a disjunction of minds, and the disjunction likewise remains during the bodily life of the one after the passing of the other. This disjunction enters a will estranged from the will of the other and engenders an inclination towards a new union. Thought then in that direction, prompted by an inclination of the will, introduces hope of a more united and thus more congenial cohabitation.
[3] It is common knowledge that inclinations to marry again arise in accordance with the state of the love had before; and this reason also sees. For inherent in truly conjugial love is a fear of its being lost, and following its loss, grief – a fear and grief which occupy the innermost recesses of people’s minds. Consequently, to the degree these emotions are present as a result of that love, to the same degree the soul, in both thought and will, and so in intention, inclines to remain with the person with whom and in whom it was. It follows from this that the mind is held counterbalanced against a second marriage according to the degree of the love which it had before. So it is that the same partners are reunited after death and love each other again as in the world.
However, as indicated above, such a love today is rare, and there are few who touch it with even a finger. People who do not attain it, and still more those who depart far from it – according as they wished for separation in their married life before (which was cold), so after the death of the partner they wish for union with another.
But we will say more about these two classes of people in what follows.
1. If there are little children in the house and a new mother must be found for them.
2. If there is an earnest desire for still more children.
3. If the house is large and equipped with servants of both sexes.
4. If constant responsibilities outside the house divert the mind from domestic concerns at home, and trouble and misfortune are feared on that account without a new mistress.
5. If there is need for joint assistance and shared duties, as is the case in a variety of businesses and trades.
6. It depends, moreover, on the nature of the partner who is left, whether after the first marriage he or she can or cannot live alone or without a mate.
7. The previous marriage also imparts either a fear of married life or a preference for it.
8. I have been told that polygamous love and sexual desire, including a lust to deflower and a lust for variety, have led the hearts of some to a desire to remarry. Also that fear of the law and fear for their reputation if they were to go awhoring have led the hearts of others to it.
There are in addition many other circumstances which induce external inclinations towards remarriage.
[2] In such cases nothing hinders or prevents the partners from being able to marry again, because the essential ties of marriage are missing in them, and so neither are any present in them after they are separated by death. Therefore they are then at complete liberty to be bound as to their sensual affections with another – if a widower, with any woman, and if a widow, with any man, as they please and as is lawful. They themselves do not think of marriage in anything but natural terms, and in terms of its advantages for the sake of various external necessities and benefits, which after the death of one may be restored again by another person in place of the former. Moreover, if by chance their inner thoughts were to be seen (as they are in the spiritual world), they would be found to make no distinction between conjugial unions and liaisons entered into apart from marriage.
[3] People of this sort may marry again and again, for the reason just given, because merely natural conjunctions after death are dissolved of themselves and fade away. For in death external affections follow the body and are buried with it, and only those remain which are connected with internal ones.
It must be known, however, that interiorly conjunctive marriages can be entered into with difficulty on earth, because choices based on internal similarities cannot be provided by the Lord there as they are in heaven. For choices on earth are limited in many ways, such as to people one’s equals in station and condition, in the area, city or town where one lives; and it is largely external qualities that draw them together there, and thus not internal ones. Internal qualities come out only after a period of marriage, and are known only as they inject themselves into external ones.
1. Because they have been united in respect to their souls and so in respect to their minds; and this union, being a spiritual one, is an actual coupling of the soul and mind of one to the soul and mind of the other, which cannot in any way be dissolved. (That this is the nature of spiritual union we have already shown here and there previously.)
[2] 2. Because they have been united also in respect to their bodies, by the wife’s reception of the propagations of the husband’s soul, and thus by an implantation of his life in hers, by which a maiden becomes a wife; and conversely by the husband’s reception of the wife’s conjugial love, which disposes the inner faculties of his mind and at the same time the inner and outer faculties of his body into a state capable of receiving love and perceiving wisdom, a state which turns him from a youth into a husband (on which subject, see nos. 198, 199 above).
[3] 3. Because an atmosphere of her love continues to emanate from the wife, and an atmosphere of his intellect from the husband; and this perfects the bonds between them, and with its pleasant ambience surrounds them and unites them (again, see above, no. 223).
[4] 4. Because married partners so united think of and yearn for eternity in their marriage, and eternal happiness for them is founded on that idea (see no. 216).
[5] 5. Because in consequence of the foregoing they are no longer two but one person, that is, one flesh.
[6] 6. Because such a oneness cannot be sundered by the death of the other partner – a fact manifestly evident to visual sight in the spirit.
[7] To these reasons we will add this new one:
7. Because the two are not actually separated by the death of one; for the spirit of the deceased continues to dwell with the spirit of the one not yet deceased, and this until the death of the other, at which time they come together again and are reunited, loving each other even more tenderly than before, because they are in the spiritual world.
From these circumstances comes the following inevitable result, that people who before had lived in a state of truly conjugial love do not wish to marry again.
If they nevertheless do afterwards enter into something like a marriage, it is for reasons dissociated from conjugial love; and these reasons are all external ones. As for example: If there are little children in the house and there is need to provide for their care. If the house is a large one, equipped with servants of both sexes. If responsibilities outside the house divert the mind from domestic concerns at home. If there is need for joint assistance and shared duties. And other like reasons.
The state in the marriage of an inexperienced man with a virgin is the true beginning state to a genuine marriage; for advancing from first warmth to first fire, and then from first seed on the part of the inexperienced husband and first bloom on the part of the virgin wife, conjugial love is able to proceed between them in its proper progression, and thus sprout, grow and come to fruition and introduce them into its states together. Otherwise the inexperienced man was not an inexperienced man, nor the virgin a virgin, except in outward appearance.
Between an inexperienced man and a widow, however, there is not the same initiation from first beginnings to marriage, nor the same progression in marriage, since a widow is more her own mistress and more independent than a single woman. An inexperienced man accordingly pays court to a widowed wife with a different regard than he would a virgin wife. Such marriages, however, exhibit much variety and diversity, and therefore we mention only this common characteristic.
The angelic heaven hangs together as a unified whole, yet it exhibits an infinite variety, in that no two people there are ever entirely alike – not in their souls and minds, nor in their affections, perceptions and consequent thoughts, nor in their inclinations and consequent intentions, nor in the sounds of their voices, facial features, physical characteristics, gestures or manner of walk. But still, even though there are millions of them, they have been organized and are continually being organized by the Lord into a single body, in which there is complete unanimity and harmony. This would not be possible except for the fact that all those various sorts of people are led, universally and individually, by the same one God. That is what we mean here by variety.
[2] By diversity, on the other hand, we mean the differences in contrast to those varieties which exist in hell. For the people there are collectively and individually diametrically opposite to those who are in heaven, and the hell formed of them is held together as a unified whole by variations among them completely contrary to the variations in heaven, thus by their perpetual disparities.
This shows what is implied by infinite variety and infinite diversity. It is the same with marriages, in that there are infinite variations among partners who are in a state of conjugial love, and infinite variations among those who are in a state of licentious love; and consequently infinite disparities between the former and the latter.
It follows as a conclusion from this that variations and disparities in marriages of whatever kind and type – whether they be marriages of an inexperienced man and a virgin, of an inexperienced man with a widow, of a widower with a virgin, or of a widower with a widow – are altogether beyond number. Who can divide infinity into finite numbers?
1. A widow cannot provide the necessities of life for herself and her household as a man can, or having acquired them, manage them as she did formerly with her husband’s help and in partnership with him.
2. Nor can she properly protect herself and her household; for in their married life her husband was her protection and so to speak her good right arm; and even when she had to protect herself, still she relied on her husband.
3. By herself she is without counsel in such matters as require an inner wisdom and its consequent judgment.
4. A widow has no one receiving the love she has as a woman; thus she is in a state alien to the state innate in her and entered into by marriage.
[2] These external circumstances are natural ones, but they take their origin from internal causes as well that are spiritual, as does everything else in the world and the body (of which above, no. 220). An understanding of the external, natural circumstances is gained from the internal, spiritual causes, which come from the marriage between good and truth, and principally from these characteristics of it: that good cannot provide or manage anything accept by means of truth; that good cannot protect itself either except by means of truth, accordingly that truth is the protection and so to speak the good right arm of good; and that good without truth is without counsel, because it has its counsel, wisdom and judgment by means of truth.
[3] Now because a man from creation is a form of truth, and a wife from creation a form of its accompanying good, or to say the same thing, because a man from creation is a form of understanding, and a wife from creation a form of its accompanying love, it is apparent that the external or natural circumstances which make the widowhood of a woman harder take their origin from internal or spiritual circumstances.
These spiritual circumstances are, together with the natural ones, meant in the Word by what it says in regard to widows in a number of places (as may be seen in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 764).
– – – – – – – – – – –
After the question concerning the soul had been discussed in the school and answered,* I saw the people going out in order, the headmaster in front, after him the older men, with the five young men who had responded to the question in the midst of them, and after them the rest. As they left the building, they went around to the sides, where there were walkways surrounded by bushes. And gathering there, they broke up into small groups, all of them circles of young men conversing on matters of wisdom, with one of the wiser men from the balcony in each.
Seeing them from my place of lodging, I entered a state of the spirit and in the spirit went out to them. And there I went over to the headmaster, who a little before had posed the question concerning the soul.
When he saw me he said, “Who are you? As I watched you approaching on the way here, I was astonished to see that one minute you would pop into view, the next minute drop out of sight, so that one moment I would see you and suddenly then not. Surely you are not in the same life-state as our people.”
Gently laughing at this I replied, “I am not a marionette, nor a chameleon, but I am one who alternates, being sometimes in your light and sometimes not, so that I am an alien and at the same time a native.”
[2] At this the headmaster looked at me and said, “These are strange and extraordinary things you are saying. Tell me who you are.”
So I said, “I live in the world in which you once lived and from which you have departed, which is called the natural world; and I live as well in the world into which you have come and in which you are now living, which is called the spiritual world. I am as a result in a natural state and at the same time a spiritual one – in a natural state when I am with people on earth, and in a spiritual state when I am with you. Moreover, when I am in a natural state, I am not visible to you; but when I am in a spiritual state, I am. To be as I am is something I have been given by the Lord.
“Being an enlightened man, you know that an inhabitant of the natural world does not see an inhabitant of the spiritual world, or vice versa. Therefore when I conveyed my spirit into my body, you did not see me; but when I conveyed it out of my body, you did.
“You also taught in your school exercise that you are souls, and that souls see souls because they are human forms. But you know that you did not see yourselves or your souls within your bodies when you were in the natural world. This fact is due to the difference that exists between something spiritual and something natural.”
[3] When he heard me mention a difference between something spiritual and something natural, he said, “What is the difference? It is not like the difference between something more pure and something less so? So what is something spiritual but a purer form of something natural.”
But I replied, “That is not what the difference is, but it is as the difference between something prior and something subsequent, between which there is no finite relationship. For the prior is in the subsequent, as a cause in its effect, and the subsequent exists from the prior, as an effect from its cause. That is why the one is not visible to the other.”
To this the headmaster said, “I have reflected and ruminated on the difference, but so far in vain. I would like to have some concept of it.”
[4] So I said, “You shall not only have a concept of the difference between something spiritual and something natural, but you will even witness the difference.” Whereupon I spoke to him as follows:
“You are in a spiritual state when you are with your own people, but in a natural state with me; for you speak with your associates in spiritual language, the common language of every spirit and angel, whereas with me you speak in my native tongue. Indeed, every spirit or angel in speaking with a mortal person uses the person’s customary language, thus speaking French with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on.
“So then, to learn the difference between something spiritual and something natural in terms of languages, do the following: Go over to your associates, say something there and remember the words. Then with these memorized, come back and repeat them to me.”
So he did as I said, and returned to me with the words in his mouth, but when he uttered them he did not know what any of them meant. The words were altogether strange and unfamiliar, being words not found in any language of the natural world.
After he repeated this experiment several times, it became clearly apparent to him that people in the spiritual world all speak a spiritual language which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world, and that every person comes automatically into use of that language after death. At the same time he also then discovered that the very intonation of spiritual language is so different from the intonation of natural language that the intonation of spiritual language, even when loud, is not at all audible to a natural person, nor the intonation of natural language to a spiritual person.
[5] After that I asked the headmaster and some others standing by to go over to their associates and write down some thought on a piece of paper, and with that piece of paper come back to me and read it. They did as I said, and they returned with the piece of paper in hand; but when they went to read it, they were unable to make out what any of it meant, since the writing consisted only of some alphabetic letters with curly lines over them, each of which carried some meaning connected with the subject. (Because every letter of the alphabet carries some meaning there, it is apparent from what origin the Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega.)** As they again and again withdrew, wrote and returned, they discovered that their writing included and contained a countless number of elements which no natural writing could ever express. But they were told that this is because a spiritual person thinks thoughts incomprehensible and inexpressible to a natural person, and these cannot descend or be put into any other form of writing or language.
[6] Then, because the others standing by were unwilling to believe that spiritual thought so far surpasses natural thought as to be inexpressible in comparison, I said to them, “Try an experiment. Go over into your spiritual association, think on some subject, and holding the thought come back and express it to me.”
So they went, thought, held the thought, and came back; but when they went to express what they had thought, they could not. For they did not find any natural mental concept equivalent to any spiritual concept. So neither did they find any word to express their thoughts, since ideas of 7the mind take form as words in speech. At that they then began to withdraw and return, to prove to themselves that spiritual ideas were higher than natural ones, being inexpressible, ineffable and incomprehensible to the natural man. And because spiritual ideas are so transcendent, they began to say that spiritual ideas or thoughts compared to natural ones were the essences of ideas and the essences of thoughts, and that they therefore expressed the essences of qualities and the essences of affections; consequently that spiritual thoughts were the germs and origins of natural thoughts. It also became evident from this that spiritual wisdom was the essence of wisdom, thus unintelligible to any person of wisdom in the natural world.
They were then told from the third heaven that there is a still more interior or higher wisdom, called celestial, which has a similar relationship to spiritual wisdom as spiritual wisdom does to natural wisdom; and that these levels of wisdom flow in succession in accordance with the heavens from the Lord’s Divine wisdom, which is infinite.
* This account follows on the one related in no. 315 above.
** In Revelation 1:8,11, 21:6, 22:13. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, in the language in which Revelation was written.
After that we heard a voice from the higher heaven saying to the headmaster, “Come up here.”
So he went up. And when he returned he said that like himself, the angels had not known before the differences that exist between something spiritual and something natural, owing to the fact that they had not previously been given an opportunity to contrast them in the case of a person who was at the same time in both worlds; and without the contrast these differences are not known.
“This now is the reason a natural person cannot think the same thoughts as a spiritual person, and so neither express them in speech. Consequently Paul calls the words he heard from the third heaven inexpressible.*
[2] “Furthermore, to think spiritually is to think apart from time and space, whereas to think naturally is to think in terms of time and space. For to every idea of natural thought there clings some element derived from time and space, but not to any idea of spiritual thought. The reason is that the spiritual world does not exist in time and space, as the natural world does, but it exists in an appearance of these two. Our thoughts and perceptions differ in this respect as well. Therefore you can think of God’s essence and omnipresence from eternity, that is to say, of God before the creation of the world, since you think of God’s essence from eternity apart from time and of His omnipresence apart from space; and in so doing you comprehend matters which transcend the ideas of a natural person.”
[3] I then went on to tell them how I was once thinking of God’s essence and omnipresence from eternity, that is, of God before the creation of the world; and because I was unable as yet to remove notions of space and time from the ideas in my thought, I became distressed, for instead of God there entered the idea of nature. But I was told: “Remove ideas of space and time and you will see.” It was then granted me to remove them, and I did see. From that time on I have been able to think of God from eternity, and not at all of nature from eternity, because God is in all time apart from time, and in all space apart from space, whereas nature is in all time within time, and in all space within space. Thus nature with its time and space could not help but have a beginning and point of origin, but not God, who is apart from time and space. Therefore nature is from God, not from eternity but in time, that is to say, it is from God simultaneously with time and at the same time space.
* 2 Corinthians 12:1-4.
So I said, “It is called a cockroach, and I will tell you some wonderful things about it. In that living thing, small as it is, there are as many parts and organs as in a camel. It has, for example, a brain, a heart, air passages, sensory organs, motor organs and organs of generation, a stomach, intestines, and many other things; and each one is composed of fibers, ligaments, blood vessels, muscles, tendons, membranes, and each of these of still finer elements, which are too tiny for any eye to see.”
[2] The boys then began to say that the little creature still looked to them as though it consisted only of a single substance.
But I said, “Nevertheless it has countless parts within. I tell you this to teach you that it is the same in every phenomenon that appears to your eyes as unitary, single, and irreducible, including your actions, and likewise your affections and thoughts. I can assure you that every particle of your thought and every drop of your affection is divisible to infinity, and according as your ideas are divisible, so are you wise.
“Be advised that everything divided becomes more and more multiple, and not more and more simple, because as something is divided again and again it approaches nearer and nearer to the Infinite in which are all things infinitely. This is something new I am telling you, which you have not heard before.”
[3] After I said this, the boys went from me to the headmaster and asked him sometime to pose as a question in the school a new subject, not heard before. He asked what it was. They said that everything divided becomes more and more multiple, and not more and more simple, because it approaches nearer and nearer to the Infinite in which are all things infinitely.
The headmaster then promised to pose it; and he said, “I see it, because I have perceived that a single natural idea has within it a countless number of spiritual ideas – indeed, that one spiritual idea has within it a countless number of celestial ideas. That is the reason for the difference between the celestial wisdom possessed by angels of the third heaven, the spiritual wisdom possessed by angels of the second heaven, and the natural wisdom possessed by angels of the last heaven and likewise by men.”
I once heard a friendly discussion among some men regarding the feminine sex, as to whether any woman can love her husband if she is constantly in love with her own beauty, that is, if she loves herself on account of her appearance. The men agreed among themselves, first that women have a twofold beauty, one a natural beauty having to do with their face and figure, and the other a spiritual beauty having to do with their love and demeanor. They agreed also that these two kinds of beauty are very often separated in the natural world, but that they are always united in the spiritual world; for outward beauty in the spiritual world is an expression of a person’s love and demeanor. It frequently happens after death therefore that homely women become beautiful, and beautiful women homely.
[2] As the men were discussing this, some wives came to them saying, “Permit us to join you; for what you are discussing you know from observation, but we know it from experience. Besides, as regards the love possessed by wives you know so little as to know scarcely anything. Are you aware that it is a matter of prudence inherent in the wisdom of wives to hide their love for their husbands and conceal it in the recesses of their bosom or at the center of their heart?”
The discussion recommenced, and the first conclusion drawn by the men was that every woman wishes to seem beautiful in appearance and beautiful in demeanor, because she is from birth the form of an affection of love and this affection is expressed in beauty. Therefore a woman who does not wish to be beautiful is not a woman who wishes to love and be loved, and so is not truly a woman.
To this the wives said, “A woman’s beauty lies in her gentle tenderness and in her consequent keen sensitivity of feeling. That is what occasions a woman’s love for a man and a man’s love for a woman. This is perhaps something you do not understand.”
[3] The men’s second conclusion was that before marriage a woman wishes to be beautiful for men in general, but after marriage, if she is chaste, for her husband only and not for other men.
To this the wives said, “After a husband has tasted the natural beauty of his wife he no longer sees it, but sees instead her spiritual beauty and returns her love because of that. If he calls to mind her natural beauty, he does so with a different view of it.”
[4] The third conclusion reached by the men in their discussion was that if a woman after marriage wishes to seem beautiful in the same way as before, she loves men in general and not her husband. “For a woman who loves herself on account of her beauty,” they explained, “continually wishes to have her beauty tasted; and because it is no longer seen by her husband – as you women have said – she wishes to have it tasted by men who do see it. It is patent that such a woman has a love for the opposite sex in general and not a love for just one.”
At this the wives were silent, though they murmured to themselves, “What woman is so without vanity that she does not wish to seem beautiful to men in general also at the same time as to her one and only?”
Listening to this were some wives from heaven, who were themselves beautiful, being forms of heavenly affection, and they confirmed the three conclusions reached by the men. But they added, “Let women love their beauty and its ornamentation, provided it is for the sake of their husbands and inspired by them.”
They then formed as their first conclusion the following: “No wife loves her husband on account of his appearance, but on account of the intelligence he displays in his occupation and conduct. Be advised, therefore, that a wife unites herself with a man’s intelligence, and thus with the man. So then, if a man loves himself on account of his intelligence, he draws it back from his wife to himself, which results in disunion instead of union. Furthermore, to love one’s own intelligence is to look to oneself for wisdom, which is to be irrational; consequently it is to love one’s own irrationality.”
To this the men said, “Perhaps the wife unites herself with her husband’s virility.”
The wives laughed at this, saying, “A man does not lack virility as long as he loves his wife in a condition of intelligence; but he loses it if he does so in a condition of irrationality. It is a mark of intelligence to love only one’s wife, and such a love does not lack virility; but it is a mark of irrationality to love in preference to one’s wife the opposite sex in general, and such a love does lack virility. Surely you know this.”
[2] Their second conclusion was as follows: “We women come by birth into a love for the intelligence of men. Consequently if men themselves love their own intelligence, their intelligence cannot be united with its proper true love which is found in a wife; and if a man’s intelligence is not united with its proper true love which is found in a wife, his intelligence becomes irrational as a result of conceit, and conjugial love in him turns cold. Now what woman can unite her love to a love that is cold? And what man can unite the irrationality of his conceit to a love for intelligence?”
However the men said, “On what ground does a man have honor from his wife if he does not extol his intelligence?”
But the wives replied, “On the ground of love, because love esteems what it loves. Esteem always accompanies love, though love may not always accompany esteem.”
[3] After that they formed as their third conclusion the following: “To you it seems as though you love your wives, but you do not see that you are loved by your wives and so love them in return. Nor do you see that your intelligence is the object of their love. So then, if you yourselves love your intelligence in you, it becomes the object of your love; and love of oneself, because it will not endure an equal, never becomes conjugial love. To the contrary, as long as it prevails it remains licentious.”
At this the men were silent; yet they murmured to themselves, “What then is conjugial love?”
Listening to this were some husbands in heaven, and they confirmed from there the three conclusions reached by the wives.
If you inquire into why polygamous marriages have been completely banned from the Christian world, no one – by whatever gift he has been given for discerning matters astutely and keenly – is able to see the reason as plain, unless he has first been taught that there is such a thing as truly conjugial love; that it is not possible except between two; that neither is it possible between two except from the Lord alone; and that engraved on this love is heaven with all its blessings. Unless these concepts precede and, so to speak, lay the first stone, the mind labors in vain to draw from its intellect any reasons to satisfy it, and on which to stand as a house on its rock or foundation, as to why polygamy has been banned from the Christian world.
People know that the institution of monogamous marriage is founded on the Word of the Lord, that anyone who divorces his wife, excepting for licentiousness, and marries another, commits adultery; that from the beginning or from the first inauguration of marriage, it was ordained that the two become one flesh; and that man is not to separate what God has joined together. (Matthew 19:3-11) But although the Lord made these declarations from the Divine law engraved on marriage, still, if the intellect cannot support it by some reason of its own, by the circumvolutions customary to it and by wrong interpretations it is nevertheless possible for it to draw the Divine law around and bring it into hazy uncertainty, and finally into an affirmative-negative estimation – affirmative, because monogamy is enjoined also by civil law, and negative, because it does not accord with people’s own rational sight.
The human mind falls inevitably into this state unless it is first instructed in respect to the aforementioned concepts, concepts given to serve the intellect as an introduction to its own reasonings; namely, that there is such a thing as truly conjugial love; that it is not possible except between two; that neither is it possible between two except from the Lord alone; and that engraved on this love is heaven with all its blessings.
But to explain the banishment of polygamy from the Christian world, these and more must be shown in turn in the order of the succeeding sections. The headings are as follows:
(1) Truly conjugial love is not possible with more than one wife, consequently neither is truly conjugial friendship, trust, potency and such union of minds that the two become one flesh.
(2) Thus with more than one wife the celestial blessings, spiritual felicities and natural delights are not possible which from the beginning have been provided for people who are in a state of truly conjugial love.
(3) None of these states is possible except from the Lord alone; and they are possible only with people who go to Him alone and at the same time live according to His commandments.
(4) Consequently truly conjugial love with its felicities is not possible except with people who are of the Christian Church.
(5) That is why it is not lawful for a Christian to have more than one wife.
(6) If a Christian takes more than one wife, he commits not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well.
(7) The Israelite nation was permitted to take more than one wife because in it the Christian Church did not exist, and so neither was truly conjugial love possible.
(8) Muslims today are permitted to take more than wife because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as being one with Jehovah the Father and thus God of heaven and earth; and they cannot for that reason receive truly conjugial love.
(9) The Muslim heaven exists outside the Christian heaven and is divided into two heavens, a lower and a higher; and only those Muslims are raised up into their higher heaven who renounce concubines, live with one wife, and acknowledge our Lord as equal to God the Father, who has given Him dominion over heaven and earth.
(10) Polygamy is lechery.
(11) Conjugial chastity, purity and sanctity are not possible with polygamists.
(12) Polygamists cannot become spiritual as long as they remain polygamists.
(13) Polygamy is not a sin among people for whom it is in accordance with their religion.
(14) Polygamy is not a sin among people who are in ignorance regarding the Lord.
(15) Of the latter, even though polygamous, those are saved who acknowledge God and from religion live according to civil laws of justice.
(16) But no polygamists of any kind can be affiliated with angels in the Christian heavens.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, throw themselves on their knees, adore her as a goddess, and submit themselves to her wishes as the humblest of servants – evidence that that love exceeds love of self?
Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, count any price as nothing, not even great riches if they have them, and who also spend their fortunes lavishly – evidence that that love exceeds love of the world?
Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, regard their very life as worthless and wish to die if she does not consent to their entreaty – evidence, as also testified to by the many battles of rival suitors even to their death, that that love exceeds love of life?
Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, at her refusal have been driven out of their minds?
[2] From this inception of conjugial love with many, who cannot rationally conclude that from its essence that love rules supreme over every other love, and that the person’s soul is then in that love, promising itself eternal blessings with the one he longs for and implores? If one searches this way and that, who can see any other cause than that the person has committed his soul and his heart to the one woman? For if a suitor were to be given, while in that state, the alternative of choosing the most estimable, most wealthy and most beautiful woman of all her sex, would he not spurn the option and cling to his choice, his heart belonging to her alone?
So much has been said, kind reader, in order that you may acknowledge that there is a conjugial love of such a superior nature, and that it exists when only one of the opposite sex is loved.
If the intellect regards correlations in connected series with a cultivated eye, what one cannot deduce from them that if a lover from his soul or from his inmost being steadfastly persists in a love for the same woman, he would attain those eternal blessings which he promised himself before her consent and continues to promise himself upon receiving it? He does attain them, too, if he goes to the Lord and lives from Him a life of true religion, as we have shown previously. Who else enters from above into a person’s life, to bestow on him the inner joys of heaven and impart these in turn to all that follows? And this still more when He also imparts at the same time a constant virility?
To judge that such a love does not exist, or is not possible, because it is not found in oneself or in this or that individual, does not follow as a valid conclusion.
* In “Truly Conjugial Love,” nos. 57ff.
As for two married partners becoming one flesh through truly conjugial love, this we showed in its own chapter,* from no. 156[r] to no. 183.
* Viz., “The Conjunction of Souls and Minds by Marriage, Meant by the Lord’s Saying that They are No Longer Two But One Flesh.”
[2] All these states of happiness have been provided from the beginning for people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, because there is an infinitude of all blessings in the Lord, who is Divine love; and the essence of love is to wish to communicate all the benefits of its goodness to the object of its love. Therefore when the Lord created man, He at the same time created this love and implanted in it a capacity for receiving and perceiving those benefits. Who is so dull and lacking in acumen that he cannot see that there is some love into which the Lord has conveyed all the blessings, felicities and delights that could ever be conveyed?
It follows accordingly that truly conjugial love with its felicities is possible only with people who go to the Lord. We say in addition, with those who live according to His commandments, because to such He is joined by love (John 14:21-24).
Truly conjugial love is nevertheless rare in the Christian world (nos. 58, 59), because few there go to the Lord, and among those few are some who, although they believe the Church, do not live what it teaches. A number of other factors enter in besides, which have been disclosed in The Apocalypse Revealed, where the present state of the Christian Church is fully described.
But still the truth remains, that truly conjugial love is not possible except with people who are of the Christian Church. That also is why polygamy has been entirely banned from it. This happened, moreover, of the Lord’s Divine providence, as is plainly evident to people who think rightly concerning Providence.
* Viz., “Truly Conjugial Love.”
The law thus given by the Lord with respect to marriages takes its deeper rationale from spiritual marriage; for whatever the Lord enunciated was in essence spiritual. This is what is meant by His saying:
The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)
The spiritual content in the present instance is that polygamous marriage in the Christian world profanes the marriage of the Lord and the church, likewise the marriage between goodness and truth, and moreover the Word, and together with the Word, the church. And profanation of these is spiritual adultery. (To see that profanation of the goodness and truth of the church by abuse of the Word has a correspondence with adultery and so is spiritual adultery, and that falsification of goodness and truth is connected similarly, though in a lesser degree, consult what we demonstrated in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 134.)
[2] Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage of the Lord and the church, because there is a correspondence between that Divine marriage and the marriages of Christians (on which subject see nos. 116-131 above*). This correspondence is entirely lost if one wife is taken in addition to another, and when it is lost the married person is no longer a Christian.
Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage between goodness and truth, because that spiritual marriage is the origin from which marriages on earth spring; and the marriages of Christians differ from the marriages of other peoples in this, that as good loves truth and truth loves good so as to be one, so husband and wife love each other and are one. Consequently, if a Christian were to add one wife to another, he would sunder that spiritual marriage in him; thus he would profane the origin of his marriage and so commit spiritual adultery. (On the point that marriages on earth spring from the marriage between goodness and truth, see nos. 83-102 above**.)
A Christian by polygamous marriage would profane the Word and the church, because viewed in itself the Word is a marriage of goodness and truth, and the Church similarly, insofar as it derives from the Word (see above, nos 128-131).
[3] Now, since a Christian person who knows the Lord is in possession of the Word and has the church from the Lord through the Word, it is apparent that he has a capability and potential beyond that of a non-Christian for being regenerated and thus becoming spiritual, and also for attaining truly conjugial love, inasmuch as the two go together.
Since those Christians who take more than one wife commit not only natural adultery but at the same time spiritual adultery as well, it follows that the damnation of Christian polygamists after death is more severe than the damnation of those who commit only natural adultery. In response to my asking about their condition after death, I received the reply that heaven was totally closed to them, and that they appear in hell as though lying in a tub of warm bathwater. So they appear from a distance, even when standing on their feet and walking. This circumstance befalls them a result of their internal madness, I was told; and some of them are cast into chasms that are located at the boundaries of their worlds.***
* I.e., “The Marriage of the Lord and the Church and Correspondence to It.”
** I.e., “The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth.”
*** Cf. no. 79:11.
It must be understood in general that a person is born natural and becomes spiritual, and that as long as he remains natural, he is, so to speak, in the dark of night and as though in a state of sleep with respect to spiritual things. In that state he is not aware even that there is a difference between the external, natural person and the internal, spiritual one.
[2] We say that the Christian Church did not exist in the Israelite nation, and this we know from the Word. For then, as they continue to do still, they awaited a Messiah who would raise them up over all other nations and peoples in the world. Consequently if they had been told, and if they were told now, that the Messiah’s kingdom is over the heavens and therefore includes all nations, they would have regarded it as nonsense. So it was that, when the Christ or Messiah – our Lord – made His advent into the world, they not only did not acknowledge Him, but even removed Him from the world in a horrifying way. It is plain from this that the Christian Church did not exist in that nation, as it still does not to this day. And people in whom the Christian Church does not exist are outwardly and inwardly natural. Thus polygamy is not held against them, inasmuch as it is engraved on the natural man; for the natural man in thinking of love in marriage perceives only such things as have to do with lust. This is the meaning of the Lord’s statement, that Moses, because of the hardness of their hearts, permitted them to divorce their wives, but that from the beginning it was not so (Matthew 19:8). He says Moses permitted it, to make known that it was not the Lord.
[3] The Lord directed His teaching to the internal, spiritual self, as we know from His precepts and from His abrogation of rituals which served a useful purpose only in the case of natural men. Thus His precepts concerning washing, that it is a purification of the inner self (Matthew 15:1,2,17-20; 23:25,26; Mark 7:14-23); concerning adultery, that it is a lust of the will (Matthew 5:28); concerning the divorcing of wives, that it is not lawful, and concerning polygamy, that it is not in accord with Divine law (Matthew 19:3-9).
The Lord taught these and many other precepts having to do with the internal and spiritual self, because He alone opens the inner elements of human minds and makes them spiritual, and implants them then in the natural elements so that they, too, take on a spiritual essence. This also is what happens if people go to the Lord and live according to His commandments. His commandments in sum are to believe in Him and refrain from evils because they are of the devil and from the devil; also to do good things because they are of the Lord and from the Lord; and to do both the one and the other as though on one’s own and at the same believe they are done through one by the Lord.
[4] As to why the Lord alone opens the internal, spiritual self and implants this in the external, natural self, the essential reason is that every person thinks and acts on the natural plane, and it is impossible for him therefore to grasp anything spiritual and receive it into his natural self except in consequence of God’s having assumed a natural humanity and made it also Divine.
From this now the truth appears, that the Israelite nation was permitted to take more than one wife because in it the Christian Church did not exist.
On that account the interior elements of their minds – which in themselves are spiritual – could not be opened (these being opened by the Lord alone, as may be seen just above in no. 340).
[2] The interior elements of the mind are opened by the Lord when people acknowledge Him as God of heaven and earth and go to Him, and this in those who live according to His commandments, for the actual reason that otherwise there is no conjunction, and without conjunction there is no reception. The Lord’s presence in a person is one thing, and conjunction with Him another. Going to Him occasions His presence; and living according to His commandments brings about conjunction. His presence alone does not involve reception; but His presence and at the same time conjunction with Him are accompanied by reception.
[3] On this subject I will relate something new from the spiritual world. Thinking about a person there causes him to be present, but no one is joined to another except by an affection of love; and an affection of love is instilled by doing as the other says and wishes. This familiar fact in the spiritual world takes its origin from the Lord, in that it is the way He is present and the way He is joined with others.
So much has been said to make known why Muslims are permitted to take more than wife; and the reason is that truly conjugial love, which exists only between one man and one wife, has not been possible with them, because they have not as a matter of religion acknowledged the Lord as equal to God the Father and thus as God of heaven and earth. (We have already shown that conjugial love depends in everyone on the state of the church in him, as may be seen in no. 130 above and in a number of other places in the preceding discussions.)
The Muslim religion has been adopted by many more countries than the Christian religion, and this may pose a problem for people who think about Divine providence and at the same time believe that no one else can be saved but one who has been born a Christian. But the Muslim religion is not a problem to those who believe that all things are of Divine providence. Such people inquire into where it lies, and moreover discover it.
The Divine providence in the present instance lies in this, that the Muslim religion acknowledges our Lord as the Son of God, the wisest of men, and as a very great prophet, who came into the world to teach mankind. However, because they made the Koran their only book of religion, and because Muhammad who wrote the book therefore settled in their thoughts, whom they follow with some degree of worship, therefore they think little about our Lord.
To have it fully known that this religion was raised up of the Lord’s Divine providence, to put an end to the idolatries of many nations, we need consider it in some order. First, then, regarding the origin of idolatrous worship:
[2] Before the Muslim religion arose, worship of idols existed throughout the world. The reason for this was that the churches before the Lord’s Advent were all representational churches. The Israelite Church was even such a church. The Tabernacle in it, the vestments of Aaron, the sacrifices, all the appointments of the Temple at Jerusalem, and moreover the statutes, were representative. Furthermore, among the ancients there was a knowledge of correspondences, which includes a knowledge of representations. It was the principal study of the wise, cultivated especially by the Egyptians, from which came their hieroglyphics.
From that study they knew what animals of every kind symbolized, also trees of every kind, likewise mountains, hills, rivers, springs, and so too the sun, moon and stars. Through that knowledge they had a cognizance of spiritual things as well, since the concepts thus represented were such things as are matters of spiritual wisdom in angels and were the origins of the representations.
[3] Now because all of their worship was representational, consisting of nothing but correspondent forms, therefore they held rites of worship on mountains and hills, and likewise in groves and gardens. Therefore they also consecrated springs, and in their venerations turned their faces to the rising eastern sun. Moreover they made carved images of horses, oxen, calves, lambs, indeed of birds, fishes, and serpents, and placed these in their houses and elsewhere, setting them in an order to reflect that of the spiritual things of the church to which they corresponded or which they represented. They also placed objects like these in their temples, to recall to mind the sacred elements in their worship which they symbolized.
In the course of time, when a knowledge of correspondences became extinguished, their posterity began to worship the carved figures themselves as sacred in themselves, not knowing that their ancient forebears did not see any intrinsic sacredness in them, but only that they represented and so symbolized sacred things by virtue of their correspondences. In consequence of this idolatries arose, which filled the whole world, both the Asiatic world with its surrounding islands and the African and European worlds.
[4] In order to eradicate all these idolatries, of the Lord’s Divine providence it came to pass that a new religion was introduced, suited to the native characters of orientals, in which there would be something from each of the two Testaments of the Word; a religion which would teach that the Lord came into the world, and that He was a very great prophet, the wisest of all men, and the Son of God. This was accomplished through Muhammad, from whom this religion received the name Muhammadanism.
It is apparent from this that this religion was raised up of the Lord’s Divine providence and suited, as said, to the native characters of orientals, in order to put an end to the idolatries of so many nations, and to provide them with some awareness of the Lord before they came into the spiritual world, as happens with everyone after death. This religion would not have been adopted by so many countries, and would not have been able to eradicate their idolatries, unless it was conformable to their ideas. Especially not, had not polygamy been permitted; and this for the additional reason that, without that permission, orientals would have blazed up more than Europeans into foul adulteries and perished.
People know that polygamous love is love divided among more than one; and love divided is not conjugial love, for conjugial love is not divisible from one of the opposite sex. Therefore polygamous love is lecherous, and polygamy is lechery.
Polygamous love is love for the opposite sex, because it differs from it only in being limited to the number the polygamist can acquire, and in being subject to certain laws enacted for the public good; also in its being permitted to take concubines in addition to wives. And so, because it is love for the opposite sex, it is a love of lechery.
[2] Polygamous love is a love of the external or natural man, because it is engraved on the natural man. And whatever the natural man does of itself is evil, from which a person cannot be withdrawn except by elevation into the internal, spiritual man, which is accomplished only by the Lord. With respect to the opposite sex, the evil inherent in the natural man is licentiousness; but because this is destructive of society, instead of licentiousness a likeness of it was introduced, which is called polygamy. (Every evil into which a person is born from his parents is implanted in his natural self, but not any of it in his spiritual self, because he is born into this from the Lord.)
From the arguments presented and also many others, it can be plainly seen that polygamy is lechery.
Now, because chastity, purity and sanctity are present only in truly conjugial love, it follows that they are not present and cannot possibly be present in polygamous love.
From these few considerations it can be seen that as long as a polygamist remains a polygamist, or to say the same thing, as long as a natural man remains a natural man, he cannot become spiritual.
Moreover, to keep it from being a sin with them, they remain natural and do not become spiritual. And the natural man cannot see anything sinful in such things as are matters of the accepted religion. That is something only the spiritual man sees. It is for this reason that although Muslims in accordance with the Koran acknowledge our Lord as the Son of God, still they do not go to Him but to Muhammad. And as long as they do that, they remain natural, and consequently do not know that there is anything evil, not even anything lecherous, in polygamy. The Lord even says:
If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say that (you) see; therefore your sin remains. (John 9:41)
Since polygamy cannot indict them of sin, therefore they have their own heavens after death (nos. 342, 343); and they experience joys there in accordance with their life.
Besides, polygamists who know nothing of the Lord remain natural; for a person is made spiritual only by the Lord. And to the natural man nothing is imputed as sin which is in accordance with the laws of his religion and at the same time of society. He acts as well in accordance with his reason; and the reason of the natural man is in complete darkness with respect to truly conjugial love – love which in its quintessence is spiritual.
Still, however, their reason learns from experience that for the sake of peace – both the public peace and their own personal peace – it is better for promiscuous lust to be restricted in the community and relegated to each one in his own home. So they settle on polygamy.
[2] It follows from this that if a person does not know through others of the Lord’s coming into the world and the fact that He is God, and has gained only some concepts relating to the religion and laws of his own region, it is not his fault if he thinks of conjugial love as no more than love for the opposite sex and believes that polygamous love is the only conjugial love there is.
The Lord leads such people in their ignorance, and by His Divine guidance He providentially averts from an imputation of guilt those who from religion refrain from evils as sins in order that they may be saved. For everyone is born for heaven, and no one for hell; and from the Lord each comes into heaven, and into hell from self.
Who does not see that when the children of Israel set out from Egypt, they had among their laws not to commit murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, and not to bear false witness, since their fellowship or society could not have survived without those laws? And yet the same laws were then proclaimed by Jehovah God on Mount Sinai in a stupefying and miraculous manner. But the reason they were so proclaimed was to make those laws also laws of religion, so that people might do them not only for the good of society, but also for God, and in doing them for God out of religion, be saved.
[3] It can be seen from this that pagans who acknowledge God and live according to civil laws of justice are saved. For it is not their fault that they know nothing regarding the Lord, consequently nothing regarding the chastity of marriage with one wife. Indeed, it is contrary to Divine justice that any be condemned who acknowledge God and live according to laws of justice as a matter of religion, which is to abstain from evils because they are against God and do good things because they accord with God.
For this reason the heavens are all kept entirely apart, so that there is no connection between them, other than by the fact of their receiving an influx of light and warmth from the Lord through the sun, in whose midst He is. This influx enlightens and animates each of them according to their reception, and that reception varies according to their religion. There is that communication, but not a communication of the heavens with each other.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I was once in the midst of angels and overheard their conversation. They were talking about intelligence and wisdom, saying that a person has no other perception than that these are both in him, consequently that whatever he thinks with his intellect and intends from his will is from him – even though not a bit of it is from the person, beyond a capacity to receive those things having to do with the intellect and will from God. Moreover, because every person is inclined from birth to love himself, they said, to keep a person from perishing from love of self and a conceit in his own intelligence, it has been provided from creation that that love in a man be transferred to his wife, and that it be implanted in her from birth to love the intelligence and wisdom of her husband and thus the man. That is why a wife continually draws her husband’s conceit in his own intelligence to herself, extinguishing it in him and causing it to live in her, thus turning it into conjugial love and filling it with gratifications beyond measure. This has been provided by the Lord, they said, to keep a man from becoming so infatuated with his own intelligence that he believes himself to be intelligent and wise from himself rather than from the Lord, thus wishing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and suppose himself on that account to be like God, and also God Himself, as said and urged by the serpent, which symbolized the love of one’s own intelligence. After eating of the tree, man was therefore expelled from Paradise, and a cherub guarded the way to the tree of life.* (Paradise, in its spiritual meaning, is intelligence. To eat of the tree of life is, spiritually, to be intelligent and wise from the Lord. And to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, spiritually, to be intelligent and wise from self.)
* See Genesis 2:16,17, 3:1-24.
However, because it was perceived in heaven that the three men shared a similar belief, a voice from there said to the ambassadorial envoy, “Put on the apparel of a priest, and suppose yourself to be a priest, and then speak.”
So he did as he was bidden. And he loudly declared then that nothing of intelligence and wisdom and so nothing of prudence can ever exist except it be from God, which he also demonstrated using the customary eloquent manner of speaking, full of rational arguments. (It is a peculiar phenomenon in the spiritual world that a spirit thinks himself to be this or that sort of person according to the kind of garment he has on. The reason for this is that it is the understanding which clothes everyone there.)
[2] After that the voice from heaven said likewise to the two priests, “Put off your attire and put on the attire of ministers of state, and suppose that that is what you are.” So they did accordingly; and they at once then thought from their inner selves and spoke using arguments they had inwardly cherished in favor of their having their own intelligence.
At that moment a tree then appeared along the path, and a voice said to them: “It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Take care that you do not eat of it.”
But despite this, infatuated as they were with their own intelligence, the three of them burned with a desire to eat of it; and they began to say to each other, “Why not? Is the fruit not good?” And they went over and ate.
Immediately then the three became warm friends, because they shared a similar belief; and together they entered on the path of their own intelligence, which led to hell. Nevertheless, I saw them brought back from there, because they had not yet been prepared.
When I once looked out into the world of spirits, I saw some men in a particular meadow, dressed in the same sort of clothing that people wear in the world, from which I recognized that they had only recently come from the world.
I went over to them and stood to the side, in order to hear what they were saying to each other. They were talking about heaven; and one of them, who knew something about heaven, said there were wonders there which no one could ever possibly believe unless he saw them. He cited as examples the paradise-like gardens; the palaces, magnificently constructed architecturally owing to the quintessence of the art there, shining as though of gold, with columns of silver in front, and covered with precious stones in heavenly forms; the houses, too, of jasper and sapphire, fronted by majestic porticos through which the angels enter; and the adornments inside the houses, which neither art nor words can describe.
[2] “As for the angels themselves,” he said, “they are of both sexes. There are young men and married men, maidens and wives – maidens so beautiful that the world has nothing to match such beauty. Yet the wives are even more beautiful, appearing as veritable pictures of heavenly love, and their husbands as pictures of heavenly wisdom. The latter are also all youthful young men; and what is more, they do not know what love for the opposite sex is other than conjugial love. Furthermore – something that will surprise you – the husbands have a continual ability to experience its delights.”
When those newly arrived spirits heard that they did not have any love for the opposite sex there other than conjugial love, and that they had a continual ability to experience its delights, they laughed among themselves and said, “What you are saying is unbelievable. Such an ability is not possible. You are, perhaps, making up stories.”
[3] But then an angel from heaven stood unexpectedly in their midst and said, “Listen to me, please. I am an angel from heaven, and I have lived with my wife now for a thousand years, in the same flower of youth in which you see me here. I have this youthfulness as a result of conjugial love with my wife; and I can declare that I have had and continue to have the continual ability you are talking about. However, because I perceive that you believe it is not possible, I will speak with you on this subject in terms of its reasons, in accordance with the light of your intellect.
“You know nothing of the original state of man, which you call the state of his integrity. In that state, all the interior faculties of the mind were opened all the way to the Lord, and consequently were pervaded by a marriage of love and wisdom or of goodness and truth. So, because the goodness of love and the truth of wisdom are continually drawn to each other by love, they continually aspire to be united; and when the interior faculties of the mind are opened, this conjunctive, spiritual love freely flows down with its continual impetus and imparts the ability.
[4] “Because man’s very soul is pervaded by a marriage of goodness and truth, it is impelled not only by a perpetual striving for union but also by a perpetual striving to be fruitful and produce a likeness of itself. So, when a person’s interior faculties are open all the way down from the soul from that marriage there – since the interior faculties continually look to producing an effect in outmost expressions as their goal, in order to manifest themselves – as a result that perpetual striving to be fruitful and produce a likeness of itself, which is one of the soul, becomes one of the body. Consequently, because the ultimate operation of the soul in the body in the case of a married couple is into the ultimate expressions of love there, and these depend on the state of the soul, it is apparent why they have this continual ability.
[5] “They experience as well a perpetual fruitfulness, because there is a universal atmosphere of begetting and propagating the celestial attributes that have to do with love, the spiritual attributes that have to do with wisdom, and so the natural attributes that have to do with offspring – an atmosphere which emanates from the Lord and fills the entire heaven and entire world. Thus that heavenly atmosphere fills the souls of all people, and descends through their minds into the body, even to the outmosts of it, imparting a generative power. However, this power can be imparted only to those in whom a passage stands open from the soul through the higher and lower regions of the mind into the body and its outermost elements, which is the case in those who allow themselves to be led back by the Lord into the original state of their creation.
“I can declare that for a thousand years now I have never lacked the ability, or the power, or the virility, and that I have not experienced at all any diminishing of its forces, since these are continually renewed by the continual flowing in of the aforesaid universal atmosphere. They also then gladden the spirit, and do not leave it depressed, as happens in the case of those who suffer a loss of them.
[6] “Furthermore, truly conjugial love is altogether like the warmth of spring, whose flowing in inspires all things to burgeon and be fruitful. That, too, is the kind of warmth we have in our heaven. Consequently married partners there have springtime in them with its constant stimulus; and that constant stimulus is the impetus from which our virility comes.
“The fruits produced among us in heaven, however, are of another kind than among people on earth. With us the fruits are spiritual, which are the fruits of love and wisdom or of goodness and truth. A wife acquires from her husband’s wisdom a love of it in her, and from his wife’s love of wisdom a husband acquires wisdom in him. Indeed, a wife is actually transformed into an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom, which is accomplished by her receptions of the propagations of his soul with delight – a delight arising from her willing to be an embodiment of love for her husband’s wisdom. From being a maiden she thus becomes his wife and a likeness of him. As a result, too, love with its inmost friendship constantly increases in the wife, and wisdom with its happiness in the husband, and this to eternity. This is the state of angels in heaven.”
[7] After the angel said that, he looked at the men who had come recently from the world and said to them, “You know that when you have felt the virile urge of love, you have made love to your married partners, and that after experiencing the delight you have turned away. But you do not know that in heaven we do not make love to our partners because of that virile force, but we have that virile force because of our love; and because we love our partners continually, that virility is continual in us.
“If you can reverse your state, therefore, you can understand this. When a man loves his partner continually, does he not love her with his whole mind and his whole body? For love directs all things of the mind and all things of the body to that which it loves; and because it is reciprocated, it so joins the two that they become as one.”
[8] He said further, “I will not speak to you of conjugial love’s having been implanted from creation in males and females, and of their inclination to a legitimate union; nor of the procreative faculty in males, which is tied together with a faculty for proliferating wisdom from a love of truth; nor of the fact that so far as a person loves wisdom from a love of wisdom, or truth from goodness, so far he experiences truly conjugial love and its accompanying power.”
So the angel answered, “Refrain from adulterous affairs as hellish and go to the Lord, and you will have it.”
And they said, “We will refrain from them as such and go to the Lord.”
But the angel replied, “You cannot refrain from adulterous affairs as being evil and hellish unless you refrain from other evils likewise, because adultery embraces them all; and unless you refrain from them you cannot go to the Lord. The Lord does not receive people otherwise.”
After that the angel departed, and those new spirits went away despondent.
We take up jealousness here, because it, too, is connected with conjugial love. Jealousness, however, may be just or unjust. Jealousness is just in married partners who love each other. In them it is a just and prudent zeal to keep their conjugial love from being violated, and a just anguish therefore if it is violated. An unjust jealousness, on the other hand, is found in people who are by nature suspicious, and who, from a viscidity and biliousness of the blood, suffer a sickness of the mind.
In addition, by some all jealousness is regarded as a failing. Especially is it so regarded by the licentious, who hurl vituperations against even just jealousness. Yet jealousness as a term derives from the same root as zeal, with a suffix (-ness) denoting quality; and it is the quality or mark of both a just zeal and an unjust zeal.
But the differences between these two will be unfolded in the succeeding discussions, which we will present in the following order:
(1) Viewed in itself, zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze.
(2) The blaze or flame of that love – which zeal is – is a spiritual blaze or flame, arising in response to an attack or assault on the love.
(3) A person’s zeal is as his love is, thus of one character when the person’s love is good, and of another character when the person’s love is evil.
(4) The zeal of a good love and the zeal of an evil love are in outward respects alike, but in inward respects entirely unalike.
(5) The zeal of a good love harbors in its inner aspects friendship and love; but the zeal of an evil love harbors in its inner aspects hatred and vengeance.
(6) The zeal of conjugial love is called jealousness.
(7) Jealousness is a kind of blazing fire against those who attack the love shared with a married partner, and a kind of trembling fear at the thought of losing that love.
(8) Jealousness is spiritual in character in monogamists, and natural in character in polygamists.
(9) In married partners who love each other tenderly, jealousness is a just anguish in accord with sound reason, that their conjugial love not be sundered and thus perish.
(10) In married partners who do not love each other, jealousness arises for a number reasons; in some owing to a sickness of the mind of one kind or another.
(11) Some people do not have any jealousness in them, also for a variety of reasons.
(12) One finds a jealousness also in regard to mistresses, but not such as arises in regard to wives.
(13) Jealousness is found also in animals and birds.
(14) Jealousness in men and husbands is different from jealousness in women and wives.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
As regards the first point, that zeal is an expression of love – this people know. When they speak of being zealous and acting from zeal they mean nothing else than an intensity of love. But because it does not appear as love when it manifests itself, but as antagonistic and hostile – being militant and combative against one who does injury to the love, therefore it may also be called the defender and protector of love. For it is the nature of all love to erupt into indignation and anger, even into rage, whenever it is dislodged from its delights. So it is that if love is interfered with, especially a governing one, there results a disturbance of the mind. And if that interference does injury, it becomes a white-hot fury. It can be seen from this that zeal is not the highest degree of love, but that it is love set ablaze.
When one person’s love finds a corresponding love in another, they are like two confederates; but when one person’s love rises up against another’s love, they become as enemies. The reason is that love is the very being of a person’s life. Consequently, anyone who attacks another’s love, attacks his very life; and this results in a state of white-hot fury against the attacker, like the state of anyone who encounters another trying to kill him.
Every love is capable of such fury, even the most peaceable, as is plainly evident from the behavior of hens, geese, and birds of every kind and the way they fearlessly rise up against and fly at those who injure their young or make off with their food. People know that some animals are prone to anger, and wild animals to rage, if their cubs are attacked or their prey taken from them.
Love is said to blaze like fire, because love is nothing but spiritual warmth, arising from the fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love. That love is warmth, as though from a fire, is clearly apparent from the warmth of living bodies, whose warmth is from no other source than the love in them. So, too, human beings grow warm and are set on fire in the measure that their loves are aroused.
It is apparent from this that zeal is, so to speak, the fire of love set ablaze.
Since love in the spiritual world is warmth arising from the sun of that world, therefore love also appears at a distance there as a flame. That is how a heavenly love appears among angels in heaven. That is also how a hellish love appears among spirits in hell. It should be known, however, that that flame does not burn and consume like flame in the natural world.
[2] Zeal arises in response to an assault on the love, because love is the warmth in everyone’s life. When the life’s love is attacked, therefore, the life’s warmth takes fire, makes a stand, and breaks out against the assailant. Thus it acts like an enemy because of its intensity and force, an intensity and force which is like a blaze of fire leaping out at anyone who disturbs it. One can see that it is like fire from the way the eyes flash, from the way the face become inflamed, and from the sound of the voice and gestures. Love acts in this way, because it is life’s warmth, in order that it may not be extinguished and with it all enthusiasm, ebullience, and sensibility to delight deriving from its love.
[2] So it is, then, that, to repel attacks, love hardens the substances of its form and erects them, so to speak, into crests, like so many bristles; that is to say, it stiffens itself. Such is the nature of love when provoked, which is called zeal. Accordingly, if it is not given a chance to resist, anxiety and anguish arise, because it foresees the destruction of its inner life and the delights accompanying it. On the other hand, if the love is placated and soothed, that form relaxes, softens and expands; and the substances of the form become soft, mild, gentle, and pleasant.
It should be known, however, that each of these two kinds of love is of infinite variety. This is clearly apparent from angels in heaven and spirits in hell. Both the one and the other in the spiritual world are forms of their love, and yet not one angel in heaven is entirely like another – in facial features, speech, manner of walk, gestures or habits – and neither is any spirit in hell. Indeed, neither can there be to eternity, no matter how many millions of times they are multiplied.
It is apparent from this that loves are of infinite variety, because their forms are. It is the same with zeal, because it is an expression of love; namely, that the zeal of one cannot be entirely like or the same as the zeal of another.
In general there is the zeal of a good love, and the zeal of an evil love.
The reason the zeal of a good love and the zeal of an evil love appear alike in outward respects is that, in either case, when love is in a state of zeal, it blazes. However, in a good person it does so only in its outward elements, whereas in an evil person it does so in both its outward and inward ones. And when the inward elements are not seen, in outward respects the two kinds of zeal appear alike.
But it will be seen under the next heading that they are entirely unalike in inward respects.
Confirmation that zeal appears in outward respects like anger and rage can be seen and heard from the manner of all who speak and act out of zeal. Consider, for example, the manner of the priest when he preaches out of zeal – how the tone of his voice is loud, vehement, sharp and severe; how his face grows warm and perspires; how he raises himself up, pounds the pulpit, and calls up fire from hell against evildoers. There are many other examples as well.
It is the same with the two kinds of zeal in people.
* A term formerly associated with iridescent stones and prismatic crystals of various types.
1. The zeal of a good love is like a heavenly flame, which never leaps out to attack another, but only defends itself – defending itself against an evil assailant in much the same way as when such a one rushes at fire and is burned; whereas the zeal of an evil love is like a hellish flame, which spontaneously leaps out and rushes upon another and tries to devour him.
2. The zeal of a good love immediately dies down and softens when the other desists from the attack; whereas the zeal of an evil love persists and is not extinguished.
3. The reason for this is that the internal element in one who is prompted by a love of good, is, in itself, gentle, mild, friendly and kind. Consequently, even when, to protect itself, the external element hardens, stiffens, bristles, and so acts harshly, still it is tempered by the goodness which moves its internal element. Not so in evil people. In them the internal element is hostile, savage, harsh, seething with hatred and vengeance, and it feeds on the delights of those emotions. And even if it is appeased, still those emotions lie concealed within, like fires smoldering in the wood beneath the ash; and if these fires do not break out in the world, nevertheless they do after death.
Since the zeal of conjugial love is the highest form of zeal, therefore we call it by a new name, jealousness, which denotes the very epitome of the quality of zeal.
With respect to people who share a spiritual love, the jealousness in them varies, because their love varies; for whether it is a spiritual one or natural, never is any one love entirely the same in two people, still less in a number.
[2] Spiritual jealousness, or jealousness in spiritual people, is a kind of blazing fire against those who attack their conjugial love, because the origin of the love in them lies in the inner elements of each partner, and from its origin their love follows its derivative effects to its outmost expressions, which, together with its initial elements, hold the intermediate elements of the mind and body in loving connection.
Because they are spiritual people, in their marriage they look to union as their goal, and in that union to spiritual tranquillity and its gratifications. So, then, because they have from their hearts rejected the idea of separation, therefore their jealousness is like a fire disturbed and leaping out against those who attack that union.
[3] Their jealousness includes as well a kind of trembling fear, because their spiritual love intends that they two be one. Consequently, if the possibility of separation arises, or an appearance of it occurs, they experience a fear that causes them to tremble, as whenever two united parts are pulled apart.
This description of jealousness was given to me from heaven, by those who possess a spiritual conjugial love. For there is a natural conjugial love, a spiritual conjugial love, and a celestial conjugial love. We will speak of the natural and celestial kinds, and of the jealousness characteristic of them, in the two discussions which follow.
As for conjugial love among polygamists, it may be seen in the chapter on polygamy, nos. 345, 347, that it is natural in character. So, too, then, their jealousness, because it accords with the love.
[2] What the jealousness of polygamists is like is known from eyewitness accounts of it among orientals. According to these accounts, their wives and concubines are guarded like captives in workhouses, and they are kept away and cut off from any communication with men. No man is allowed to enter their harems or the apartments where they keep their women, unless accompanied by a eunuch. Moreover, they watch closely to see if any of the women regards some passerby with a lustful eye or look; and if they observe it, the woman is beaten or whipped as punishment. And if she behaves wantonly with some man slipped into the courtyard by stealth, or outside it, she is punished with death.
Jealous fire in natural people who are monogamists, however, is of another character. Their love is not set on fire in the same way against the women, but against the trespassers. Towards them it becomes anger, and towards the women, coldness. Not so in the case of polygamists. The fire of their jealousness blazes also with a vengeful fury. This, too, is one of the reasons that the concubines and wives of polygamists are for the most part, after death, set free, and assigned to unguarded women’s residences, there to make various articles connected with the crafts of women.
Such a zeal in married partners who love each other tenderly is just and in accord with sound reason, because it is at the same time a fear of losing eternal happiness, not only one’s own, but the partner’s as well, and because it is also a protection against adultery.
As regards the first point, that it is a just fear of losing eternal happiness, both one’s own and one’s partner’s – this follows from everything we have presented previously concerning truly conjugial love, and from the fact that from conjugial love comes the blessedness of their souls, the happiness of their minds, the delight of their breasts, and the pleasure of their bodies. And because these continue for them to eternity, it is a fear for the couple’s eternal happiness.
That such a zeal is a just protection against adulterous affairs, is obvious. On that account it is like a fire blazing out against any encroachment and protecting itself against it.
It is apparent from this that anyone who loves his partner tenderly is also jealous, but justly and soundly so, in the measure of the man’s wisdom.
[2] On the point that zeal in a man has its seat in his intellect, the reason, they said, is that conjugial love protects itself through the intellect, as good protects itself through truth. Thus a wife protects those concerns which she has in common with a man through her husband. And for that reason zeal is implanted in men, and through men and on account of men in women.
In response to my asking in what region of the mind in men it resides, they replied, in their souls, because it is also a protection against adulterous affairs. And since these are what principally destroy conjugial love, the man’s intellect hardens at threats of encroachment and becomes like a horn smiting the adulterer.
People know that men take pride in their virility, which is to say that they wish to be esteemed for it. For as long as they have this honor, they go about as though uplifted in mind and not downcast in face before men and women. Attached to this honor is also an implication of ruggedness, which is why military officers have it settled in them more than others.
The second reason, a fear of having their name brought into disrepute and that of their wife, goes along with the first, with the further consideration that living with a licentious woman and having a brothel in the home are causes for scandal.
As for jealousness in order not to have their domestic affairs upset, this is found in some for the reason that, in the measure it happens, the husband is scorned and their joint duties and support fall apart. However, in some cases this jealousness in time ceases and comes to an end; and in some it turns into a mere pretense of love.
There are many impairments of the mind which induce such a sickness. Chief among these is a suspicious imagination, which, if fed long, introduces the mind into societies of like spirits, from which it can only with difficulty be withdrawn. It establishes itself in the body as well, by causing the body’s fluid and thus the blood to become viscous, sticky, thick, sluggish, and caustic. A failure of the virile powers further increases it, for this renders the mind incapable of being lifted up out of its suspicious fantasies. For the mind is uplifted by the presence of the virile powers, and cast down by their absence, their absence causing the mind to fall, crumple, and become limp. And the mind then becomes more and more immersed in its fantasy, until it goes mad – a madness which has its outlet in a delight of making accusations, and to the extent it is permitted, of hurling vituperations.
[2] The reasons for this kind of jealousness, however, are of two types. One is an imprisonment and suffocation of their thoughts in regard to spiritual matters connected with the church. The other is an inbred lust for exercising vengeance.
As regards the first reason, namely, an imprisonment and suffocation of their thoughts in regard to spiritual matters connected with the church, what effect this has may be concluded from what we have shown previously, that everyone’s conjugial love depends on the state of the church in him (no. 130), and because the church comes from the Lord, that that love comes solely from the Lord (no. 131). Consequently, when, instead of the Lord, people turn to men living and dead and call on them, it follows that their state is not a state of the church with which conjugial love can be allied; and still less so when their minds are terrorized into that worship by threats of a horrible incarceration. So it is that their thoughts are forcibly imprisoned and suffocated, and at the same time their speech; and when these are suffocated, ideas flow in that are either contrary to the church or imaginary substitutes for the church. These in turn give rise to nothing else but a state of heat for loose women and icy coldness towards having a partner. And when these two exist in the same person, from them flows such an ungoverned fire of jealousness as described.
[3] As regards the second reason, namely, an inbred lust for exercising vengeance, this completely halts any influx of conjugial love, absorbs it and swallows it up, and turns its delight, which is a heavenly delight, into a delight in vengeance, which is hellish, and which is directed first of all at the wife.
From the appearance, it seems as well that the unwholesomeness of the atmosphere there, which is permeated by the poisonous exhalations of the surrounding area, may be a subsidiary cause.
Jealousness is non-existent especially in people who make conjugial love of no more account than licentious love, and who are at the same time without honor, placing no value in their reputation and name. They are not unlike married pimps.
Jealousness is non-existent also in those who have rejected it out of a conviction that it only torments the mind, that it is useless to stand guard over a wife, that to stand guard over her simply goads her on, and that it is better therefore to close one’s eyes and not even peek through the keyhole in the door lest something be visibly detected. Others have rejected jealousness because of the stigma attached to the attribution of jealousness, thinking that a man who is a man feels no fear. Still others have been compelled to reject it to keep their domestic affairs from being ruined, and to avoid becoming the subject of public reproach if they were to accuse their wives of the wantonness they are guilty of.
In addition, jealousness becomes gradually non-existent in men who grant their wives license to have lovers because of a failure of their own virility, in order to have children to become their heirs; in some cases, too, for the sake of gain; and so on.
There are also licentious marriages, in which by mutual consent they are both granted license to have affairs, and who yet maintain a civil countenance when they encounter each other.
Jealousness in regard to wives springs from the inmost elements, because that is where conjugial love has its seat. It has its seat there, because by its sworn eternity established by covenant, and also by the equality of right by which what belongs to one belongs to the other, marriage unites souls and binds the deeper levels of their minds. Once implanted, this union and bond remains unsundered, whatever love exists between them later, be it warm or cold. [2] (That is why an overture to lovemaking on the part of a wife chills a man totally from inmosts to outmosts, whereas an overture to lovemaking on the part of a mistress does not so chill a lover.)
Jealousness in regard to a wife has attached to it the wish for a good name, to preserve one’s honor; and this subsidiary reason for jealousness does not exist in regard to a mistress.
Still, however, these two kinds of jealousness each vary, depending on the seat of the love received from the wife or of that received from the mistress, and depending at the same time on the state of the judgment of the man receiving it.
It is very apparent in cocks, which battle with rivals over their hens, even to their death. They are possessed of such jealousness, because they are vainglorious lovers, and the vainglory of their love does not tolerate a rival. One can see that they are vainglorious lovers – more vainglorious than any other kind or species of bird – from their movements, the motions of their heads, their struttings, and the sounds they make.
We have already shown above in the case of men, that whether they feel any love or not, the vainglory of their honor induces, heightens, and exacerbates jealousness.
Regarded in themselves, jealousness in men and jealousness in women are different, being from a different origin. The origin of jealousness in men is in the intellect, whereas in women it is in the will adjoined to the intellect of her man. Jealousness in men is therefore like a blaze of fury and anger, while in women it is like a fire contained by various fears, by the varying ways in which they regard their husbands, by the varying ways in which they view their own love, and by their varying degrees of prudence in not revealing their love to their husbands by a display of jealousness. These differences exist, because wives are forms of love, and men recipients; and wives have to be careful not to destroy their love in men, whereas its recipients do not have to exercise the same care with their wives.
[2] The situation is different in the case of spiritual people. In their case the man’s jealousness is transmitted to the wife, as the wife’s love is transmitted to the husband; and therefore the jealousness in one and the other against the attempts of a transgressor appear alike. However, against the attempts of a transgressing trollop the wife’s jealousness is infused into the husband, which is felt as grief weeping and moving the conscience.
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I was once in a state of amazement at the great number of people who attribute creation to nature, attributing to it therefore all things under the sun and all things above the sun. Whenever they see anything, they say with an acknowledgment of the heart, “Is this not a product of nature?” When they are asked then why they attribute these things to nature, and not to God, even though they sometimes say with everyone else that God created nature, and so could just as well attribute the things they see to God as to nature, they reply in a muffled, almost inaudible tone, “What is God but nature?”
As a result of their persuasion regarding the creation of the universe from nature, and that insanity masquerading as a product of wisdom, they all give the impression of being vainglorious, so vainglorious as to scorn all who acknowledge the creation of the universe as being from God, regarding them as ants crawling on the ground and treading the beaten path, and some as butterflies flitting about in the air. They call their dogmas dreams, because they see what they themselves do not see, and they say, “Who has seen God? And who has not seen nature?”
[2] As I was in a state of amazement at the multitude of such people, an angel stood beside me and said to me, “What are you meditating on?”
So I replied, “On the multitude of those who believe that nature created the universe.”
Then the angel said to me, “The whole of hell consists of people like that, and they are called there satanic spirits and devils – satanic spirits, those who have convinced themselves on the side of nature and for that reason have denied God; devils, those who have lived wickedly and so have rejected from their hearts any acknowledgment of God. But I will take you down to forums located in the southwestern zone, where such people gather who are not yet in hell.”
The angel then took me by the hand and led me down. And I saw cottages in which the forums were housed, and in the middle of them one that seemed to be the headquarters of the rest. It was built of pitchstones, which were overlaid with thin glass-like sheets of gold and silver, seemingly glittering, like those which are called isinglass*; and interspersed here and there were oyster-shells, similarly glistening.
[3] We went over to it and knocked; and presently someone opened the door and said, “Welcome.” Then he ran to a table and brought back four books, saying, “These books are the wisdom which a number of countries are applauding today. This book or wisdom here is applauded by many in France; this one by many in Germany; this one by some in Holland; and this one by some in Britain.”
He then went on to say, “If you care to see it, I will cause these four books to shine before your eyes.” Whereupon he poured out and projected around them the glory of his reputation, and soon the books shone as though with light. But the light immediately vanished from before our eyes.
At that point we asked, “What are you presently writing?” And he replied that he was presently extracting and elucidating from his stores of knowledge points which were matters of the most interior wisdom, being in summary the following: (1) Whether nature is a product of life, or life a product of nature. (2) Whether a center is the product of an expanse, or an expanse the product of a center. (3) How this applies to the center and expanse of nature and life.
[4] Having said this, he sat down again at the table, while we walked around in his forum, which was quite large. He had a candle on the table, because there was no daylight from the sun in the room, but a nocturnal, lunar light. And what surprised me, the candle seemed to move all about there and so cast its light – although, because the wick was not trimmed, it provided little illumination. Moreover, as he wrote, we saw images in various forms flying from the table on to the walls, which in that nocturnal lunar light looked like beautiful birds of India. But when we opened the door and let in daylight from the sun, behold, in that light they looked like birds of the evening, having net-like wings. For what he was writing were semblances of truth, which by his confirmations became fallacies, which he had ingeniously woven together into logical series.
[5] After witnessing this, we went over to the table and asked him what he was writing now.
“I am dealing,” he said, “with the first point, as to whether nature is a product of life, or life a product of nature.” And he remarked in regard to it that he could confirm either one and make it to be true; but that because he harbored something in him that made him afraid, he dared to confirm only that nature is a product of life, meaning that it is derived from life, and not that life is a product of nature, or derived from nature.
We asked amiably what it was that he harbored within to make him afraid.
He replied that it was the possibility of his being labeled by the clergy an adherent of naturalism and thus an atheist, and by the laity a man of unsound reason, since both clergy and laity consist of people who either believe in accordance with a blind faith or see in accordance with the sight of those who defend it.
[6] However, being moved then by a certain indignation out of zeal for the truth, we addressed him, saying, “Friend, you are greatly deceived. Your wisdom, which lies in the ingeniousness of your writing, has led you astray, and the glory of your reputation has induced you to confirm what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being elevated above sensual appearances, which are appearances in the thoughts from the bodily senses, and that when it is elevated, it sees such things as have to do with life above, and such things as have to do with nature below? What is life but love and wisdom? And what is nature but a vessel of these by which they work their effects or ends? Can these two be one other than as a principal and instrumental cause? Can light be one with the eye? Or sound with the ear? Where do the powers of these senses come from except from life, and their forms except from nature?
“What is the human body but an organ of life? Are not each and all elements in it organically formed to produce the effects that love wills and the understanding thinks? Are not the organs of the body from nature, and the love and thought from life? Are these not entirely distinct from each other?
“Raise the sight of your genius yet a little higher, and you will see that to be affected and think are properties of life; and that the capacity to be affected derives from love, and to think, from wisdom, and both of these from life – for, as we said, love and wisdom are life.
“If you raise the faculty of your understanding a little higher still, you will see that no love or wisdom is possible unless somewhere it has an origin, and that its origin is love itself and wisdom itself, thus life itself; and these are God, from whom comes nature.”
[7] Afterwards we spoke with him about his second point, as to whether a center is the product of an expanse, or an expanse the product of a center. And we asked why he was discussing this.
He replied that he was doing it in order to draw a conclusion concerning the center and expanse of nature and life, thus concerning the origin of the one and the other. When we asked then what his thinking was, he answered in regard to this in the same way as before, that he could confirm either one, but that for fear of losing his reputation he was confirming that an expanse is the product of a center, or in other words, derived from the center – “even though I know,” he said, “that there was something prior to the sun, and this everywhere in the universe, and that these things flowed of themselves into an order, thus into centers.”
[8] But then again out of an indignant zeal we spoke to him and said, “Friend, you are insane.”
And when he heard it, he pushed his chair back from the table and regarded us timidly; after which he turned to us his ear, but laughing as he did so.
Nevertheless we continued, saying, “What is more insane than to say that the center comes from the expanse. We interpret your center to mean the sun, and your expanse to mean the universe, thus that the universe came into being without a sun. Does the sun not produce nature and all its properties, which are dependent solely on the heat and light emanating from the sun and conveyed through the atmospheres? Where were these before? But we will tell you where they originated later on.
“The atmospheres, and all things on the earth – are they not like surfaces, and the sun their center? What would all these things be without the sun? Could they for one instant endure? So, then, what would all these things have been before the sun? Could they have endured? Is not continued existence a continual coming into existence? Consequently, since the continued existence of all things of nature depends on the sun, it follows that their coming into existence does, too. Everyone sees this and acknowledges it from his own observation.
[9] “Does not something subsequent as it comes into existence also continue in existence from something prior? If the surface were prior, and the center subsequent, would not the prior then subsist from the subsequent – which is, however, contrary to laws of order?
“How can subsequent things produce prior ones? Or outer ones inner ones? Or grosser ones finer ones? How then can surfaces which form an expanse possibly produce centers? Who does not see that this is contrary to laws of nature?
“We have advanced these arguments from an analysis of reason, to confirm that an expanse arises from a center, and not the reverse, even though everyone who thinks rightly sees this without these arguments.
“You said that the expanse flowed together into a center of itself. Was it by chance, then, that it flowed into such a marvelous and astounding order that one thing exists for the sake of another, and each and all things for the sake of man and his eternal life? Is nature able to act from some love by means of some wisdom to produce such effects? Is nature also able to form men into angels and angels into a heaven? Contemplate this and think about it, and your idea of nature’s arising from nature will fall to the ground.”
[10] After that we asked him what he had thought and what he thought now in respect to the third point, regarding the center and expanse of nature and life. Did he think the center and expanse of life to be the same as the center and expanse of nature?
He said that he hesitated. He had previously thought that the inner activity of nature was life; that from it originated the love and wisdom which essentially form a person’s life; and that it was the fire of the sun, acting through its heat and light by means of the atmospheres, which produced these. But now, he said, from what he was hearing about people’s eternal life, he was in a state of vacillation, and this vacillation carried his mind sometimes upward, sometimes down. When it was carried upward, he acknowledged a center of which he had previously known nothing; and when down, he saw the center which he had believed to be the only one; thus thinking that life is from the center of which he had previously known nothing, and that nature is from the center which he had before believed to be the only one, each center having its own expanse surrounding it.
[11] To this we said, well and good, provided he was willing also to regard the center and expanse of nature as being from the center and expanse of life, and not the other way around.
We then told him that above the angelic heaven there is a sun which is pure love, fiery in appearance like the sun of the world; and that it is owing to the warmth emanating from that sun that angels and men have will and love, and owing to the light from it that they have understanding and wisdom. We said, too, that such things as are matters of life are called spiritual, and that such things as emanate from the sun of the world are vessels of life and are called natural. Furthermore, that the expanse of the center of life is called the spiritual world, which subsists from its sun, and that the expanse of nature is called the natural world, which subsists from its sun.
Now, because love and wisdom cannot have spaces and times ascribed to them, we said, but instead of these states, the expanse surrounding the sun of the angelic heaven is not dimensional, but yet is present in the dimensional expanse of the natural sun, and in living objects there according to their reception of it, and this in accordance with their forms.
[12] However, at that point he asked what produced the fire of the sun of the world or of nature.
We replied that it originated from the sun of the angelic heaven, which is not a ball of fire, but the Divine love most immediately emanating from God, who is love itself. Then because he wondered at this, we demonstrated it as follows:
“In its essence, love is spiritual fire. So it is, that fire in the Word, in its spiritual sense, symbolizes love. That is why priests in temples pray that heavenly fire may fill people’s hearts, by which they mean love. In the Tabernacle among the Israelites, the fire of the altar and the fire of the lampstand represented nothing else but Divine love. The warmth of the blood, or the vital heat in people and in animals generally, is from no other origin than the love which forms their life. It is in consequence of this that a person is set on fire, grows hot, and bursts into flames whenever his love is roused up into zeal, anger and rage. Since it is spiritual heat, or love, which produces the natural heat in people, even so as to ignite and inflame their faces and limbs, it can accordingly be seen from this that the fire of the natural sun arose from no other origin than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love.
[13] “Now because an expanse arises from its center, and not the reverse, as we said earlier, and the center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is the Divine love most immediately emanating from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and because from it arose the expanse of that center, which is called the spiritual world; and because from that sun arose the sun of the world, and from this its expanse, which is called the natural world, it is apparent that the universe was created by God alone.”
After that we departed, with him accompanying us outside the grounds of his forum. And he spoke with us about heaven and hell, and about the Divine superintendence, with a new sagacity of acumen.
* I.e., laminae of mica.
When I once looked about into the world of spirits, I saw at a distance a palace, surrounded and seemingly besieged by a crowd of people. And I also saw many others running towards it. Wondering at this, I quickly arose from my house and asked one of those running what was happening. He replied that three newcomers from the world had been taken up into heaven and had seen magnificent things there, including maidens and wives of astonishing beauty. Having been let down from that heaven, they had now entered the palace over there and were recounting what they had seen, especially that they had found women of such beauty, the like of which their listeners’ eyes had never seen, and which they could not see unless illumined by the light of the heavenly atmosphere. They said in regard to themselves that they had been lecturers in the world, from the kingdom of France, that they had cultivated a facility in the art of speaking, and that they were now overcome with a desire to speak about the origin of beauty. Because this was made known in the surrounding area, the multitude flocked in to hear them.
Hearing this, I, too, hastened and went in; and I saw the three men standing in the center, dressed in sapphire-colored gowns, which, being inwoven with threads of gold, shone as though golden at their every turn. They stood behind a kind of pulpit, in readiness to speak; and presently one of them rose up on the step behind the pulpit to give his lecture on the origin of the beauty of the feminine sex, in which he presented the following:
“The whole world agrees in affirming that everyone is lovable and beautiful in accordance with his love. But still the love possessed by the masculine sex is one thing, and the love possessed by the feminine sex another. The love in males is a love of growing wise, and the love in females is a love of loving the love of growing wise in a male. Consequently, in the measure that a youth exhibits a love of growing wise, in the same measure he is lovable and beautiful to a maiden; and in the measure that a maiden exhibits a love of a youth’s wisdom, in the same measure she is lovable and beautiful to the youth. Accordingly, as the love of the one meets and kisses the love of the other, so also do the beauty of the one and the beauty of the other. I conclude, therefore, that love forms beauty into a likeness of itself.”
“I have heard,” he said, “that love is the origin of beauty, but I am not inclined to agree. Who among mortals knows what love is? Who has had any mental conception of it so as to examine it? Who has seen it with his eye? Tell me where he is.
“But I assert that wisdom is the origin of beauty – wisdom which in women is inmostly hidden and concealed, which in men is apparent and visible. What makes a person human but wisdom? If it were not for wisdom, a person would be a sculpture or painting. What does a maiden observe in a young man but the nature of his wisdom? And what does a young man observe in a maiden but the nature of her affection for his wisdom? By wisdom I mean genuine morality, because this is wisdom in life. So it is that when her hidden wisdom approaches and embraces his visible wisdom, which happens interiorly in the spirit of each, they kiss each other and unite, and this is called love; and then they appear to each other as pictures of beauty.
“In a word, wisdom is like the light or radiance of a fire, which strikes the eyes, and as it does, creates beauty.”
“Love alone is not the origin of beauty, neither is wisdom alone, but the origin is a union of love and wisdom – a union of love with the wisdom in a youth, and a union of wisdom with its love in a maiden. For a maiden does not love wisdom in herself but in a young man, and on that account sees him as beautiful; and when the young man see this in a young woman, he then sees her as beautiful. Therefore love through wisdom creates beauty, and wisdom from love receives it.
“The fact of this is clearly apparent in heaven. I saw maidens and wives there, and observed their beauty; and I beheld one kind of beauty in the maidens and another altogether in the wives, seeing in the maidens only its sparkle, but in the wives its effulgence. I saw the difference as being like that between a diamond sparkling with light and a ruby refulgent at the same time with fire.
“What is beauty but something that gives delight to the sight? What is the origin of this delight but the interplay of love and wisdom? This interplay causes the sight to glow, and the glow radiates from eye to eye and presents beauty.
“What makes the beauty of a face but its ruddy glow and pearly radiance, and a lovely blending of the two? Is the ruddy glow not owing to love, and the pearly radiance to wisdom? For love glows with a ruddy glow from its fire, and wisdom shines with a pearly radiance from its light. I saw both qualities plainly in the faces of a married couple in heaven – a ruddy glow blended with a pearly radiance in the wife, and a pearly radiance blended with a ruddy glow in the husband. And I noticed that their looking at each other caused each to become brighter.”
When the third speaker said this, the crowd applauded and cried out, “He is the winner!” And suddenly a flaming light – which is the light of conjugial love also – filled the house with a radiant splendor, and at the same time their hearts with gladness.
There are evidences which show that conjugial love and a love of little children – which is called storge* – are conjoined; and there are evidences as well which may induce a belief that they are not conjoined. For a love of little children is found in married partners who love each other from the heart, and it is found in partners who are discordant in heart; and also in partners who have separated, and sometimes tenderer and stronger in them than in others. But it can be seen from the origin from which it flows that a love of little children is still forever conjoined with conjugial love. Even though the origin varies in its recipients, still these loves remain undivided, just as any first end in the last end, which is the effect. The first end of conjugial love is the procreation of offspring, and the last end, which is the effect, is the offspring produced. The first end enters into the effect and exists in it as it was in its inception, and does not depart from it, as can be seen from a rational consideration of the progression of ends and causes in their series to effects.
But because the reasonings of many people commence only from effects, and proceed from these to certain consequences, and do not commence from causes and proceed analytically from these to effects, and so on, therefore rational matters of light cannot help but become with them the dark shadows of a cloud, resulting in divergences from truths, arising from appearances and misconceptions.
To show, however, that conjugial love and a love of little children are inwardly conjoined, even if outwardly separated, we will demonstrate it according to the following outline:
(1) Two universal atmospheres emanate from the Lord to preserve the universe in its created state, one of which is an atmosphere of procreating, and the other an atmosphere of protecting what has been procreated.
(2) These two universal atmospheres ally themselves with an atmosphere of conjugial love and with an atmosphere of love for little children.
(3) These two atmospheres flow universally and particularly into all things of heaven and into all things of the world, from the firsts to the lasts of them.
(4) The atmosphere of a love for little children is an atmosphere of protecting and maintaining those who cannot protect and maintain themselves.
(5) This atmosphere affects both evil people and good, and disposes everyone to love, protect and maintain his progeny in accordance with his particular love.
(6) This atmosphere affects the feminine sex primarily, thus mothers, and the masculine sex or fathers from them.
(7) This atmosphere is also an atmosphere of innocence and peace from the Lord.
(8) An atmosphere of innocence flows into little children, and through them into the parents so as to affect them.
(9) It also flows into the souls of the parents, and joins itself with the same atmosphere in the little children; being insinuated principally through the instrumentality of touch.
(10) In the measure that innocence in little children recedes, affection and conjunction are also lessened, and this progressively to the point of separation.
(11) The rational ground of innocence and peace in parents with respect to their little children is that the little children know nothing and can do nothing of themselves, but are dependent on others, especially on their father and mother; and this state also gradually recedes as the children gain knowledge and are able to act on their own independently of their parents.
(12) This atmosphere proceeds sequentially from its end through causes into effects, and produces cycles, by which creation is preserved in its foreseen and provided state.
(13) A love of little children descends, and does not ascend.
(14) The state of love that wives have before conception is of one character, and of another character after conception to the time of birth.
(15) Conjugial love is conjoined with a love of little children in parents by spiritual motivations and consequent natural ones.
(16) A love of little children and offspring is of one character in spiritual partners, and of another character in natural ones.
(17) In spiritual partners, this love comes from within or from a prior cause, while in natural partners it comes from without or from the subsequent effect.
(18) So it is that this love is found in partners who love each other, and also in partners who have absolutely no love for each other.
(19) A love of little children remains after death, especially in women.
(20) Little children are reared by them under the Lord’s guidance, and they grow in stature and intelligence as in the world.
(21) The Lord provides there that the innocence of early childhood in them become an innocence of wisdom, and that the little children thus become angels.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* 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.
Everything that flows out from an object, surrounds it and envelops it, is called an atmosphere. As, for example, the atmosphere of light and heat from the sun around it; the atmosphere of life from a person around him; the atmosphere of aroma from a shrub around it; the atmosphere of attraction from a magnet around it; and so on.
[2] But the universal atmospheres which we are discussing here are from the Lord around Him; and they emanate from the sun of the spiritual world, at whose center He is. From the Lord through that sun emanates an atmosphere of warmth and light, or to say the same thing, an atmosphere of love and wisdom, to bring about ends which are of use. However, that atmosphere is designated by various names according to the uses it serves. The Divine atmosphere in regard to the preservation of the universe in its created state by successive generations, is called an atmosphere of procreating; and the Divine atmosphere in regard to the preservation of those generations in their beginnings and afterwards in their advances, is called an atmosphere of protecting what has been procreated.
In addition to these two, there are a number of other Divine atmospheres, which are named according to the uses they serve, having thus various names, as may be seen above in no. 222. Effectuations of useful ends by means of these atmospheres are Divine providence.
That now is why we say these two atmospheres flow in universally and particularly.
That an atmosphere of conjugial love is thus universal may be seen above in nos. 222-225.
[2] That an atmosphere of love for little children is, too, is apparent from the existence of that love in heaven, where little children from earth are; and from the existence of that love in the world, in people, and in animals and birds, snakes and insects.
Analogues of this love are found also in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. In the vegetable kingdom, seeds are protected by coverings like swaddling clothes, are sheltered in fruit as in a house, and are nourished by the juice as with milk. Something similar is found in the case of minerals, as appears from the matrices and encasements in which fine gems and noble metals are hidden and protected.
Although mothers and fathers protect and maintain their little children because they cannot protect and maintain themselves, that is not the cause of this love, but is a rational reason arising from the love as it enters into the intellect. For in consequence of that reason alone, without the infusion of love to inspire it, or without the law and its penalty to compel him, a person would no more provide for his children than a statue.
[2] That, too, is why this love is fiercer in savage beasts, as in lions and lionesses, in bears and she-bears, in leopards and leopardesses, in wolves and she-wolves, and other like animals, than in horses, deer, goats and sheep. The reason is that these savage beasts have a supremacy over the gentle, and so have a dominant love of self, and this love loves itself in its offspring. Consequently, as said, the love flowing in is turned to self.
Such an inversion of the love flowing in to self, and the consequent protection and maintenance of their offspring and young by evil parents, is of the Lord’s Divine providence; for otherwise, of the human race, only a few would survive, and of the savage beasts, which nevertheless serve a use, not any.
It is apparent from this that everyone is disposed to love, protect and maintain his offspring in accordance with his particular love.
Evidence that a love of little children is engraved on the conjugial love into which women come by birth is apparent from the loving and friendly affection of girls for little children, and for the dolls which they carry, dress, kiss and clasp to their bosoms. Boys do not have the same affection.
[2] It appears as though mothers acquire a love of little children from their having nourished them in the womb with their own blood, and from the children’s consequent assimilation of their life, and so from a sympathetic union between them. But this is nevertheless not the origin of that love, since, if, without the mother’s knowing, another child were substituted after the birth in place of the true one, she would love it with equal tenderness as if it were her own. Moreover, little children are sometimes loved more by their nurses than by their mothers.
From these considerations it follows that this love derives from no other source than the conjugial love implanted in every woman, to which has been adjoined a love of conceiving, the delight of which causes a wife to be prepared for reception. This is the first beginning of that love, which after the birth passes with its delight in fullness to the child.
* See no. 223 above.
Innocence and peace are the innermost elements of heaven for the further reason that innocence is the very essence of every good, and peace is the serenity of every delight that is connected with good. (See the book, Heaven and Hell, on “The State of Innocence of Angels in Heaven,” nos. 276-283, and “The State of Peace in Heaven,” nos. 284-290.)
* As in John 1:29,36; Revelation 5:6,8,12,13, 6:1,16, 7:9,10,14,17, 12:11, 13:8, 14:1,4,10, 15:3, 17:14, 19:7,9, 21:9,14,22,23,27, 22:1,3.
However, we will say briefly what the nature of the innocence of early childhood is which affects parents. It radiates from the little children’s faces, from some of the movements they make, and from their first speech, and so affects them.
Little children have this innocence, because they do not think from anything interior; for they do not yet know what is good and evil, and true and false, so as to think in accordance with them. Therefore they do not have any prudence of their own, nor any design from a deliberate motive, thus are without any purpose for evil. They do not have a character acquired from love of self and the world. They do not credit anything to themselves. All that they receive they attribute to their parents. They are content with the little things they are given as gifts. They do not worry about their food and clothing, and are not anxious about the future. They do not pay regard to the world and covet many things on account of it. They love their parents, their nursemaids, and their little companions, and play with them in a state of innocence. They allow themselves to be guided; they listen and obey.
Such is the innocence of early childhood, which occasions the love called storge.
Nevertheless, if parents did not receive that influx also in their souls and in the inmost levels of their minds, the innocence of their little children would fail to affect them. An equivalent and comparable element must exist in another for communication to take place, and to bring about reception, affection, and so conjunction. Otherwise it would be like a tender seed falling on flint, or like a lamb thrown to a wolf.
That, now, is the reason for the statement, that innocence flowing into the souls of parents joins itself with the innocence of little children.
[2] The fact that this conjunction is occasioned in parents through the instrumentality of the physical senses, but especially through that of touch, is something we can know from experience. As for example, that the vision is inmostly delighted by the sight of them, the hearing by their speech, and the sense of smell by their fragrance.
Evidence that the communication and thus conjunction of innocent states is occasioned especially through the instrumentality of touch is clearly seen from the gratification of carrying them in one’s arms, and from their hugs and kisses – especially in the case of mothers, who are delighted by the resting of their mouth and face upon their bosoms, and at the same time then by the touch of their hands there; in general, by their suckling at their breasts and nursing; and in addition, by the patting of their naked body, and by their untiring work of diapering them and washing them upon their knees.
[3] We have already shown several times before that communications of love and its delights between married partners are occasioned through the sense of touch. Communications of the mind are also occasioned by it, for the reason that the hands are the terminal elements of a person, and his first elements are present together in the terminal ones. This is also what holds all things of the body and all things of the mind that are intermediate in an unbroken connection. So it is that Jesus touched little children (Matthew 19:13,15, Mark 10:13,16); and also that He healed the sick by touching them,** and those were healed who touched Him.{#} That, too, is why inaugurations into the priesthood today are performed by the laying on of hands.
It is apparent from this that the innocence of parents and the innocence of little children meet through the instrumentality of touch, especially through that of the hands, and thus join themselves as though by kisses.
* As, for example, in Matthew 8:3, 8:15, 9:29,30, 20:34; Mark 1:41,42, 7:33-35, 8:22-25; Luke 5:13, 7:14,15, 22:51.
** As, for example, in Matthew 9:20-22, 14:35,36; Mark 3:10, 5:27-29, 6:56; Luke 6:19, 8:43,44,47.
This happens, however, only in the case of man, in order that he may do what he does in freedom in accordance with reason, and be moved by it as by rational and at the same time moral law to support his grown offspring in accordance with what is necessary and useful. This second reason is not found in creatures devoid of reason. In their case there is only the prior cause, which in them is instinct.
[2] Such a sequence is engraved on every person, in general and in every particular, just as will, intellect, and action is. Every end there has to do with the will, every cause with the intellect, and every effect with action. Similarly, every end has to do with love, every mediating cause with wisdom, and every resulting effect with useful endeavor. The reason is that the recipient vessel of love is the will, the recipient vessel of wisdom is the intellect, and the recipient vessel of useful endeavor is action. Consequently, since activities in general and particular in a person proceed from the will through the intellect into act, so do they also from love through wisdom into useful endeavor. (Only by wisdom here we mean everything that is connected with judgment and thought.)
It is apparent that these three elements are united in the effect. That they are also together in idea and thought prior to the effect is seen from the fact that the only thing that intervenes is execution. For in the mind the end issues from the will, produces for itself a cause in the intellect, and forms for itself an intention; and an intention is a kind of act prior to the execution. So it is that intention is accepted by a wise man as the act, and also by the Lord.
[3] What rational person cannot see, or, when he hears it, acknowledge, that these three elements flow from some prime cause, and that the cause is, that from the Lord, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, continually emanate love, wisdom, and useful endeavor, and those three as one? Say if you can what the origin would be otherwise.
[2] As for the cycles of these progressions, people know that they exist, and that by them creation is preserved in its foreseen and provided state.
However, the course that a love of little children follows, from its height to its wane, thus to the point at which it stops and terminates, is a retrograde one, since it recedes according to the decrease of innocence in its object, and also as a result of its cycles.
The fact that this love in a person descends in increasing measure is owing also to the vainglory of his honor, which likewise grows in him in accordance with enlargements of his issue. We will see under heading (16) below that a love of honor and glory receives into it the love of little children flowing in from the Lord and makes it seemingly an extension of itself.
The natural motivations causing a conjunction of these two loves are to give birth to those who may contribute useful services in human societies, and to bring about their incorporation into those societies as members.
That these spiritual and natural motivations are connected with a love of little children and conjugial love is something married partners themselves also think and sometimes declare, saying that they have enriched heaven with as many angels as they have descendants, and that they have embellished society with as many contributors as they have children.
On the other hand, however, on their becoming fathers and mothers, after they have tasted the sweetness of the innocence in their little children, the love they have for their children is quite different from that of natural fathers and mothers for theirs. Spiritual parents love their children for their spiritual intelligence and moral life, loving them thus for their fear of God and for their piety of conduct or life, and at the same time for their affection for and application to useful endeavors of service to society, thus for the virtues and good habits in them. Out of a love for these traits principally do they provide for and supply their needs. Consequently, if they do not see such traits in them, they estrange their heart from them and only out of duty do anything for them.
[2] In natural fathers and mothers, a love of little children springs, indeed, from innocence also, but when this innocence is received by them, it is wrapped around their own personal love. Consequently it is as a result of that love and at the same time innocence that they love their little children, kissing them, hugging them, carrying them, clasping them to their breasts, and cajoling them beyond all measure, and looking upon them as being of one heart and one soul with themselves. Later, then, after the period of their early childhood, to the age of puberty and beyond, when innocence is no longer operative, they love them, but not for any fear of God or for any piety of conduct or life, nor for any rational or moral intelligence in them, and they pay little or almost no attention to their inner affections and thus to any virtues and good habits, but only to their external qualities to which they are favorably disposed. It is to these latter qualities that they attach, fasten and cement their love. Therefore they also close their eyes to their faults, excusing them and encouraging them. The reason for this is that in them the love of their progeny is also love of self, and this attaches itself to its object superficially, and does not extend deeper into it, as the object does not into the love.
Spiritual fathers simply look them over and ask them in what state they are, rejoicing if all is well with them, and grieving if it is not. Then, following some conversation, instruction and counsel regarding a heavenly moral life, they part from them, telling them before parting that they are no longer to be remembered as their fathers, because the Lord is the only Father of all who are in heaven (according to His words in Matthew 23:9), and that they will never remember them as being their children.
In contrast, as soon as natural fathers notice that they are living after death and recall to mind the children who have passed on before them, and in accordance with their wish and prayer these are also presented to them, they immediately throw their arms around each other and cling to each other like bound bundles of sticks. Moreover, the father then takes continual delight in beholding them and talking with them. If the father is told that some of these children of his are satanic fiends, and that they have inflicted injuries on the good, he nevertheless keeps them in a cluster about him or in a troop before him. If he himself sees them inflicting harm and doing evil things, he nevertheless pays no attention to it and does not separate any of them from him. Therefore, in order to keep such a pernicious band from continuing, of necessity they are sent off together into hell; and there, in the presence of his children, the father is shut up in prison, and the children are separated and each dispatched to a place in keeping with his life.
Such hatred and love coexist together in people who in the world had been inwardly crafty and had poisoned their mind against the Lord.
It is similar with the love of little and older children in spiritual parents and that in natural ones. Spiritual parents love their children from a prior cause, thus in accordance with order; whereas natural parents love them from the subsequent effect, thus contrary to order.
This consideration has been presented simply to corroborate the preceding discussion.
Nevertheless, a love of little children and conjugial love are still united, because conjugial love is implanted in every woman from creation, and together with it a love of procreating – a love which is directed to and centers on the offspring produced, and which is conveyed from women to men, as said above.* So it is that, in homes in which there is no conjugial love between husband and wife, it nevertheless still exists in the wife, through which she has some external conjunction with her husband.
It is for this same reason that even licentious women love their offspring. For anything that has been implanted in souls from creation and looks to procreation, is indelible and cannot be eradicated.
* See no. 393.
The heaven where little children reside appears up front in the region of the forehead, in the line or direction in which angels look directly to the Lord. That heaven is situated there because the little children are all raised under the immediate guidance of the Lord. They also have the heaven of innocence flowing into them, which is the third heaven.
After they have passed through this first age, they are transferred to another heaven, where they receive their schooling.
After that, as the little children are perfected in intelligence, so they grow in stature, and in this respect also look more mature. The reason for this is that intelligence and wisdom are the essence of spiritual nourishment. Therefore the things that nourish their minds there also nourish their bodies.
But little children in heaven do not grow beyond the first age of maturity. They stop at that age and remain in it to eternity. Moreover, when they reach that age, they marry. Their marriage is provided by the Lord and celebrated in the heaven where the young man resides; and he shortly then follows his wife into her heaven, or to her house if they are in the same society.
In order that I might know for certain that little children also grow and develop in stature as they grow and develop in intelligence, I was given to speak with some when they were little children, and again later when they had matured, and they looked like adolescents of a similar stature as that of youthful adolescents in the world.
Little children once represented the Lord rising from the tomb, and together with it the union of His Humanity with the Divine. They presented first an idea of the tomb, but not at the same time an idea of the Lord, except so remotely that one scarcely perceived that it was the Lord, and then only as though at a distance, the reason being that in the idea of a tomb there is something funereal, which they thus removed. Afterwards they carefully let into the tomb some sort of atmosphere, yet having the appearance of a thin watery mist, by which they symbolized, also by an appropriate remoteness, the spiritual life in baptism.
Later I saw represented by them the Lord’s going down to those who were bound, and His ascent with the bound into heaven.* And, in typically childlike fashion, they let down delicate and fine little threads, almost invisible, by which to raise the Lord in His ascent, governed always by a holy fear lest anything in the representation touch on any point in which there was not something heavenly.
I could mention other representations besides, by which, as by games compatible with their infantile minds, little children are brought simultaneously into concepts of truth and affections for good.
Little children are led by the Lord to these and similar activities by the innocence passing through the third heaven, and spiritual elements are thus insinuated into their affections and consequent tender thoughts, in such a way that the little children do not know but that they do and think these things on their own, by which their understanding begins.
* This reflects, apparently, the belief held by many Christians that after His death, Christ descended in spirit to a state or place in the nether world to rescue the souls of pre-Christian people who were waiting to be redeemed. It is based on such Biblical passages as 1 Peter 3:18-20 and Isaiah 42:7, among others. The descent of Christ into hell appears as an article of belief in creeds dating from the 4th century.
Little children are therefore led from the innocence of early childhood to the innocence of wisdom; that is, from an external innocence to an internal one. This latter innocence is the goal in all their instruction and advancement. Consequently, when they reach the innocence of wisdom, attached to it is the innocence of their early childhood, which in the meantime had served them as a foundation.
I once saw the nature of the innocence of early childhood represented by something woody, almost without life, but which becomes more alive as children acquire concepts of truth and affections for good. Then afterwards the nature of the innocence of wisdom was represented by a live and naked little child.
Angels of the third heaven are more than all others in a state of innocence from the Lord, and to the eyes of spirits who are below the heavens, they appear as naked little children. Being, moreover, wiser than the rest, they also are more alive. The reason is there is a correspondence between innocence and early childhood, and between innocence and nakedness. Therefore it is said of Adam and his wife, when they were in a state of innocence, that they were naked and not ashamed, but that after they lost their state of innocence, they were ashamed of their nakedness and hid themselves (Genesis 2:25, 3:7,8,10,11). In short, the wiser angels are, the more innocent they are.
What the innocence of wisdom is like can be seen in some measure from the innocence of early childhood described above in no. 395, provided that the Lord is substituted for the parents there as the Father by whom such people are guided and to whom they attribute all that they receive.
Let little children come to Me, do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child will not enter it. (Mark 10:14,15, Luke 18:16,17)*
Here, as also elsewhere in the Word, by little children are meant those who are in innocence.
Good is good to the extent that it has innocence in it, because all good is from the Lord, and to be led by the Lord is innocence.
* See also Matthew 19:14, 18:3.
One morning as I awoke from sleep, while meditating in the serene morning light before being fully awake, I saw through the window what seemed to be flashes of lightning, and presently heard what seemed to be the rumbling of thunder. Then, as I wondered what the cause was, I heard from heaven the following:
“There are people not far from you who are arguing bitterly about God and nature. The flashing of light like lightning and the rumbling of the air like thunder are correspondences and thus manifestations of the conflict and clash of their arguments, one side on the side of God, and the other on the side of nature.”
The reason for the spiritual conflict was this. There were satanic spirits in hell who said to each other, “If we could only speak with angels from heaven! We would absolutely and thoroughly show that what they call God, from whom all things flow, is nature, and thus that God is only a term unless by it they mean nature.” And because those satanic spirits believed this with all their heart and all their soul, and longed as well to speak with angels from heaven, it was granted them to ascend from the muck and gloom of hell and to speak then with two angels descending from heaven. They were in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell.
[2] Seeing the angels there, the satanic spirits rushed up to them and in a furious voice cried out, “You must be the angels from heaven that we are allowed to meet with to argue about God and nature. People call you wise because you acknowledge God, but oh, how simple you are! Does anyone see God? Does anyone understand what God is? Does anyone comprehend how God rules and can rule the universe and each and all things of it? Who but the lower-class and common person acknowledges what he does not see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is the all in all things? Who has seen anything with his eye but nature? Who has heard anything with his ear but nature? Who has smelled anything with his nose but nature? Who has tasted anything with his tongue but nature? Who has felt anything with the touch of his hand and body but nature? Are not the senses of our body the only attesters of truth? Who cannot swear on the basis of them that a thing is so? Do your heads not exist in nature? The thoughts in your heads – from what origin does anything flow into them but from nature? Take nature away. Are you capable of any thought?”
And they added many other things of a similar nature.
[3] After listening to this, the angels replied, “You speak as you do because you are merely sense-oriented. All spirits in hell keep the ideas of their thoughts immersed in the senses of their body, nor can they elevate their minds above them. We pardon you therefore. A life of evil and a consequent faith in falsity has closed up the inner faculties of your mind, so that to rise above things of the senses is in your case impossible – unless, that is, you are in a state removed from the evils of your life and the falsities of your faith. For a satanic spirit can understand truth when he hears it just as well as an angel, only he does not retain it, because evil wipes out the truth and introduces falsity. However, we perceive that you are now in such a removed state, and so can understand the truth in what we say. Pay attention, therefore, what we are about to tell you.”
Then the angels said, “You were in the natural world, and died there, and now you are in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before this about the life after death? Did you not previously deny it, and regard yourselves on a par with animals? Did you know anything beforehand about heaven and hell, or about the light and warmth of this world? Or the fact that you are no longer in the confines of nature but above it? For this world and all things in it are spiritual, and spiritual things are above natural ones, so much so that not the least thing of nature can enter into this world. But because you believed nature to be a kind of god or goddess, you also now believe that the light and warmth of this world are the same as the light and warmth of the natural world, even though they are not in the least the same. For natural light here is darkness, and natural warmth here is cold.
“Did you know anything about the sun of this world, from which comes our light and our warmth? Did you know that this sun is pure love, and the sun of the natural world nothing but fire? That the sun of the world, which is nothing but fire, is the origin from which nature came into existence and continues in existence? That the sun of heaven, which is pure love, is the origin from which life itself, which is love combined with wisdom, came into existence and continues in existence? And thus that nature, which you regard as a god or goddess, is wholly without life?
[4] “If given protection, you could ascend with us into heaven, and if given protection, we could descend with you into hell; and in heaven you would see magnificent and splendid sights, whereas in hell we would see squalid and filthy ones. These differences exist, because all in heaven worship God, and all in hell worship nature. Thus the magnificent and splendid sights in heaven are correspondences of affections for good and truth, while the squalid and filthy sights in hell are correspondences of lusts for evil and falsity.
“Draw your own conclusion, now, from the one and the other, as to whether God or nature is the all in all things.”
To this the satanic spirits replied, “In the state in which we are now, we can conclude from what you have said that it is God; but when the delight of evil seizes our minds, we see nothing but nature.”
[5] The two angels and two satanic spirits were standing not far from me on the right, so that I saw them and heard them. Moreover, I suddenly saw around them a multitude of spirits who in the natural world had been renowned for their learning; and I wondered at the fact that these learned people would stand, sometimes with the angels, sometimes with the satanic spirits, and that they would side with those with whom they were standing. But I was told that their changes in position reflected changes in their state of mind as they favored now the one side, now the other.
“For they are chameleons,” I was told. “Moreover, we will tell you a mystery. We looked down upon the earth at people renowned for their learning, who consulted their own judgment in what they thought concerning God and nature; and we found six hundred out of a thousand on the side of nature, and the rest on the side of God. However, we found the latter on the side of God because they frequently said that nature is from God – not owing to any understanding, but only in consequence of what they had been told; and frequently saying a thing from memory and recollection, and not at the same time as a result of thought and intelligence, induces a kind of faith.”
[6] After that the satanic spirits were given protection, and they ascended with the two angels into heaven, where they saw magnificent and splendid sights. Moreover, being then in a state of enlightenment from the light of heaven there, they acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to serve the life which is in God and from God; also that nature in itself is lifeless, and thus does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life.
Having seen and perceived these things, they descended, and as they descended, their love of evil returned, which closed up their intellect above and opened it below; and then above it a kind of veil appeared, flashing with a hellish fire. Moreover, the moment their feet touched the ground, the earth opened under them and they sank back to their companions.
So they came over and asked me to read to them what I had written about God and nature; and I read therefore the following:*
People who believe that the Divine operates in every single thing of nature, can, from the many things which they see in nature, confirm themselves on the side of the Divine, just as well as and even more than those who confirm themselves on the side of nature. For people who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of both plants and animals.
In the propagations of plants, they note how a tiny seed cast into the ground produces a root, by means of the root a stem, and then in succession branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, culminating in new seeds – altogether as though the seed knew the order of progression or the process by which to renew itself. What rational person can suppose that the sun, which is nothing but fire, has this knowledge? Or that it can impart to its heat and its light the power to produce such effects, and in those effects can create marvels and intend a useful result?
Any person having an elevated rational faculty, on seeing and considering these wonders, cannot but think that they issue from one who possesses infinite wisdom, thus from God.
People who acknowledge the Divine also see and think this; but people who do not acknowledge the Divine do not see and think it, because they do not want to. Therefore they allow their rational faculty to descend into their sensual self, which draws all its ideas from the light in which the bodily senses are, and which defends the fallacies of these, saying, “Do you not see the sun accomplishing these effects by its heat and its light? What is something that you do not see? Is it anything?”
[2] People who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of animals – to mention here only those in eggs, as that in them lies the embryo in its seed or inception, with everything it requires to the time it hatches, and with everything that develops after it hatches until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. Also that if one gives attention to the form, it is such that, if one thinks deeply, one cannot help but come into a state of amazement – seeing, for example, that in the smallest of these creatures as in the largest, indeed in the invisible as in the visible (i.e., in tiny insects as in large birds or animals), there are sensory organs which serve for sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch; also motor organs, which are muscles, for they fly and walk; as well as viscera surrounding hearts and lungs, which are actuated by brains. That even lowly insects possess such component parts is known from their anatomy as described by certain investigators, most notably by Swammerdam** in his Biblia Naturae***.
[3] People who attribute all things to nature see these wonders, indeed, but they think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking about the Divine; and when people who have turned away from thinking about the Divine see wonders in nature, they are unable to think rationally, still less spiritually, but think instead in sensual and material terms. They then think within the confines of nature from the standpoint of nature and not above it, in the way that those do who are in hell. They differ from animals only in their having the power of rationality, that is, in their being able to understand and so think otherwise if they will.
[4] People who have turned away from thinking about the Divine when they see wonders in nature, and as a result become sense-oriented, do not consider that the sight of the eye is so crude that it sees a number of tiny insects as a single, indistinct mass, and yet that each of them is organically formed to be capable of sensation and movement, thus that they have been endowed with fibers and vessels, including little hearts, air passages, viscera and brains; that these have been woven together out of the finest elements in nature; and that these structures correspond to some activity of life, by which even the least of these are individually actuated.
Since the sight of the eye is so crude that a number of such creatures, each with countless components in it, looks to it like a small, indistinct mass, and yet people who are sense-oriented think and judge in accordance with that sight, it is apparent how obtuse their minds have become, and thus in what darkness they are in respect to spiritual matters.
* From Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 351-357, 350.
** Jan Swammerdam, 1637-1680, Dutch anatomist and entomologist.
*** Published posthumously under Dutch and Latin titles, Bybel der Natuure; of, Historie der insecten…/Biblia Naturae; sive Historia Insectorum… (A Book of Nature; or, History of Insects…), with text in Latin and Dutch in parallel columns, Leyden, 1737 (vol. 1), 1738 (vol. 2).
417. Everyone can, from the visible phenomena in nature, confirm himself on the side of the Divine if he wills; and everyone also does so confirm himself who thinks of God from the standpoint of life. As for example, when he regards birds of the sky and sees that each species of them knows its own food and where to find it; that each recognizes by sound and appearance its own kind, and which among other species are its friends and which its enemies; that they form nuptial pairs, know how to mate, skillfully build nests, lay their eggs there, brood over them, know how long to incubate them, and at the end of that time hatch out their young, tenderly love them, shelter them under their wings, share their food with them and feed them, and this until they become independent, and can themselves do the like and produce a brood to perpetuate their kind.
Everyone who is willing to think about a Divine influx through the spiritual world into the natural one, can see it in these phenomena, and if he will, can say in his heart, “Such instances of knowledge cannot flow into these creatures from the sun through the emanations of its light; for the sun from which nature draws its origin and essence is nothing but fire, and consequently the emanations of its light are altogether without life.” Thus these people may also conclude that such phenomena exist from an influx of Divine wisdom into the outmost effects of nature.
418. Everyone can, from the visible phenomena in nature, confirm himself on the side of the Divine when he observes caterpillars, which to gratify some urge, seek and aspire to change the state of their earthly existence into a state more analogous to a heavenly one; which therefore creep into places and wrap themselves as though in womb in order to be reborn, and there become chrysalises, pupae…, nymphs, and finally butterflies; and having undergone this metamorphosis and put on wings in accordance with their species, fly away into the air as though into their heaven, where they play amiably, mate, lay their eggs, and provide themselves a posterity, and then sustain themselves on pleasant and sweet nourishment from flowers.
What person, who, from the visible phenomena of nature, confirms himself on the side of the Divine, does not see a kind of image of man’s earthly state in these creatures as caterpillars, and an image of man’s heavenly state in them as butterflies? People who confirm themselves on the side of nature, however, see these phenomena, indeed, but because they have rejected from their minds any concept of man’s heavenly state, they call them mere instincts of nature.
419. Everyone can, from the visible phenomena in nature, confirm himself on the side of the Divine when he considers what is known about bees: that they know how to gather wax and extract honey from herbs and flowers, and to construct cells resembling little houses and arrange them into the pattern of a city, with streets by which to go in and out; that they detect from a distance the fragrance of the flowers and herbs from which they gather wax for their home and honey for their food, and laden with these fly back in a direct line to their hive; thus providing for themselves food and habitation for the coming winter, as though they were aware of it and foresaw it. They also set over them a dominant female as queen by which to propagate their posterity; and for her they build a court above, with attendants surrounding her. When the time comes for her to deliver, she goes accompanied by her attendants from cell to cell and lays her eggs, which are sealed up by the swarm following her to protect them from the air. From these they produce a new generation. Later, when the new generation has advanced to the appropriate age to be able to do the like, it is expelled from the nest; and having been expelled, the horde first gathers itself, and in a swarm therefore to keep the assemblage from being scattered, flies away (then) to seek (out) for itself a home. Around the time of autumn, moreover, the useless drones are taken out and divested of their wings, to keep them from returning and consuming the colony’s food, for which they have expended no effort. And many other phenomena as well; from which it can be seen that, because of the useful service which bees perform for the human race, they have by virtue of an influx from the spiritual world a form of government such as is found among human beings on earth, indeed among angels in heaven.
What person who has his reason intact does not see that such phenomena in these creatures are not owing to the natural world? The sun from which nature emanates – what characteristic does it have in common with a government imitative of and analogous to the government of heaven?
From these and…like phenomena in the case of brute animals, the proponent and worshiper of nature confirms himself on the side of nature, while the proponent and worshiper of God, from the same phenomena, confirms himself on the side of the Divine. For a spiritual person sees spiritual effects in them, and the natural person sees natural ones – thus each such things as accord with his character.
As for myself, to me phenomena of this sort have been evidences of an influx of the spiritual realm into the natural, or of the spiritual world into the natural world, emanating thus from the Lord’s Divine wisdom.
Consider, too, whether you could think in an analytical manner about any form of government, any civil law, any moral virtue, or any spiritual truth, if something Divine did not flow in from His wisdom through the spiritual world. For my part, I could not and cannot. For I have been consciously and sensibly aware of that influx (for twenty-five years) now without interruption. Therefore I speak from personal experience.
420. Can (nature) have as an end a useful purpose, and dispose useful endeavors into patterns and forms? No one can do this but one who is wise; and no one can so order and form the universe but God, who has infinite wisdom. Who else…can foresee and provide all those things which serve mankind for food and clothing – food from the fruits of the earth and from animals, and clothing from the same sources?
Among the wonders we see is that those lowly larvae we call silkworms should with their silk clothe and magnificently adorn both women and men, from queens and kings to maidservants and menservants; and that lowly insects such as bees should supply wax for the lights by which temples and courts are filled with a radiant splendor.
These wonders and more are visible proofs that it is the Lord acting from Himself through the spiritual world who produces all the phenomena which (are found) in nature.
421. To this I should add the following, that in the spiritual world I have seen people who, from the visible phenomena of the world, confirmed themselves on the side of nature to the point that they became atheists, and in a spiritual light their intellect appeared open below but closed above, for the reason that in thought they had looked downward to the earth, and not upward to heaven. Above the sensory level, which is the lowest level of the intellect, a kind of veil appeared, in some cases flashing with a hellish fire, in some cases as black as soot, and in some cases as pale as a corpse.
Let everyone guard himself, therefore, from confirmations on the side of nature. Let him confirm himself on the side of the Divine. There is no lack of material for it.
422. Some people must indeed be pardoned for having attributed certain visible phenomena to nature, for the…reason…that they have not known anything about the sun of (the spiritual world) where the Lord is, and the influx from it; nor anything about (that) world and its state, nor, indeed, of its presence with man. And therefore they could not help but think that anything spiritual was a purer form of something natural; thinking thus that angels existed either in the stratosphere or in the stars; and in regard to the devil, either that it was the evil in man, of if he actually existed, that he existed either in the air or in the depths of the earth; also that people’s souls after death existed either at the center of the earth or in some limbo or other to the Day of Judgment; and other like things, which their fancy persuaded them of owing to their ignorance of the spiritual world and its sun….
(For this reason) they must be pardoned who have believed that nature produces the phenomena they see by a power implanted from creation. However, those who by confirmations on the side of nature have made themselves atheists, cannot be pardoned, because they could have confirmed themselves on the side of the Divine. Ignorance, indeed, excuses, but it does not take away falsity that has been confirmed; for such falsity is bound together with evil, (and evil) with hell….
At this threshold we must first disclose what we mean in this chapter by licentious love. We do not mean the fornicatory love which precedes marriage, nor that which follows it after the death of one’s partner; nor the taking of a mistress which is entered into for legitimate, just and weighty reasons. Nor do we mean the milder kinds of adultery, nor the more serious kinds of which a person actually repents; for the first are not opposed to conjugial love, and the latter do not become opposed. (That they are not opposed will be seen in discussions that follow, where each will be considered in turn.)
But what we mean by licentious love that is opposed to conjugial love is a love of adultery, when it is of such a nature that it is not regarded as a sin, nor even as something evil and dishonorable contrary to reason, but as something permissible, in accord with reason. This kind of licentious love not only deems conjugial love to be no different from it, but also ruins it, destroys it, and finally loathes it.
[2] The opposition of this love to conjugial love is the subject of this chapter. That no other love is meant can be seen from the subsequent chapters on fornication, the taking of a mistress, and the various kinds of adultery.
To make this opposition evident to rational sight, however, it must be demonstrated according to the following outline:
(1) The nature of licentious love is not known unless the nature of conjugial love is known.
(2) Licentious love is opposed to conjugial love.
(3) Licentious love is opposed to conjugial love as one’s natural self, regarded in itself, is opposed to one’s spiritual self.
(4) Licentious love is opposed to conjugial love as the connubial alliance of evil and falsity is opposed to the marriage of good and truth.
(5) Thus licentious love is opposed to conjugial love as hell is opposed to heaven.
(6) The uncleanness of hell springs from licentious love, and the cleanness of heaven from conjugial love.
(7) So, too, uncleanness in the church, and cleanness in it.
(8) Licentious love makes a person less and less human and less and less a man, while conjugial love makes a person more and more human and more and more a man.
(9) There is an atmosphere of licentious love, and an atmosphere of conjugial love.
(10) An atmosphere of licentious love ascends from hell, and an atmosphere of conjugial love descends from heaven.
(11) In both worlds these two atmospheres meet, but do not combine together.
(12) Between these two atmospheres there is an equilibrium, and mankind lives in it.
(13) A person can turn himself in the direction of either atmosphere, but in the measure that he turns to one, in the same measure he turns away from the other.
(14) Each atmosphere brings with it delights.
(15) The delights of licentious love arise from the flesh, and are delights of the flesh even in the spirit; while the delights of conjugial love arise in the spirit, and are delights of the spirit even in the flesh.
(16) The delights of licentious love are pleasures of insanity, whereas the delights of conjugial love are delights of wisdom.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
As for the statement that the nature of licentious love is not known unless the nature of conjugial love is known, this does not need to be demonstrated, but may simply be illustrated by comparable parallels. Who can know, for instance, what evil and falsity are, unless he knows what is good and true? Who can know what is unchaste, dishonorable, unbecoming, and ugly, unless he knows what is chaste, honorable, becoming, and beautiful? Who can discern insanities except one who is wise, or who knows what wisdom is? Or who can accurately detect dissonant discords except one who by instruction and practice has learned harmonic patterns? Similarly, who can see clearly the nature of adultery, unless he has seen clearly the nature of marriage? And who can display to his judgment the filthiness of the pleasures of licentious love, unless he has first displayed to his judgment the cleanness of conjugial love?
Now, because I have completed Part One, Delights of Wisdom Relating to Conjugial Love, from the intelligence thus acquired I am able to describe Pleasures Relating to Licentious Love.
That each and all things have their opposites is apparent from the examples of light, heat, intervals of time in the world, affections, perceptions, sensations, and many other things. The opposite of light is darkness. The opposite of heat is cold. Instances of opposites in intervals of time in the world are day and night, summer and winter. Instances of opposites in affections are states of joy and states of sorrow, states of happiness and states of sadness. Instances of opposites in perceptions are perceptions of good and perceptions of evil, perceptions of truth and perceptions of falsity. And instances of opposites in sensations are pleasant sensations and unpleasant ones.
From this one may conclude, on the basis of all the evidence, that conjugial love has its opposite. And the opposite is adultery, as everyone can see, if he wills, from the universal dictates of sound reason. Say, if you can, what else the opposite of it is. Moreover, because sound reason has been able by its own light to see this plainly, therefore it has enacted laws, called civil laws of justice, in support of marriages and against adulterous relationships.
[2] To make it still more clearly apparent that these two are opposites, let me relate something I have seen quite often in the spiritual world. When people who, in the natural world, were deliberate adulterers perceive the atmosphere of conjugial love flowing down from heaven, they immediately either flee away into caverns and hide, or, if they stiffen themselves against it, are whipped up into a rage and begin to act like madmen. This phenomenon occurs because all qualities having to do with people’s affections, delightful and undelightful, are there perceived, and sometimes as clearly as an odor is by the sense of smell; for they do not have a material body to swallow up such things.
[3] Nevertheless, the opposition of licentious love to conjugial love is not known by many in the natural world, owing to delights of the flesh which in outmost respects seemingly emulate the delights of conjugial love; and people who focus on the delights alone do not know anything about that opposition. I can also surmise that if you said to them that everything has its opposite, and concluded that conjugial love has its opposite, too, adulterers would reply that that love does not have an opposite, because licentious love does not differ from it in any physical sensation. From this it is apparent as well that anyone who does not know the nature of conjugial love, also does not know the nature of licentious love; and further, that the nature of conjugial love is not known from the experience of licentious love, but rather the nature of licentious love from the experience of conjugial love. No one knows good from the experience of evil, but evil from the experience of good. For evil dwells in darkness, while good abides in light.
The natural self is the character into which everyone is first led as he matures, which is accomplished through various kinds of knowledge and concepts, and by rational matters having to do with the intellect. But the spiritual self is the character into which he led by a love of being useful, a love which is also called charity. Accordingly, in the measure that anyone is in a state of charity, in the same measure he is spiritual; but in the measure that he is not in that state, in the same measure he is natural, even if he should be discerning in acumen and wise in his judgment.
However far it elevates itself into the light of reason, this self that is called natural, when separated from the spiritual self, still surrenders to lusts and engages in them. This becomes apparent from its character alone, as being without charity; and the person who is without charity is left vulnerable to all the lascivious pleasures of licentious love. Consequently, even when such a person is told that this libidinous love is opposed to a chaste, conjugial love, and is asked to consult his rational sight, still he does not consult that sight except in conjunction with the delight that he feels from the evil implanted from birth in his natural self; and he concludes as a result that his reason does not see anything against the pleasant sensory temptations of his body. Moreover, after he has confirmed himself in this, his reason becomes numb to all the sweet joys that are ascribed to conjugial love. Indeed, he fights against them, as we said above, and vanquishes them, and like a conqueror after the slaughter, destroys, from its peripheries to its centers, the camp of conjugial love in him. This is what a natural person does in consequence of his licentious love.
This much is presented to make known the origin from which the opposition of these two loves arises. For, as shown many times before, conjugial love, regarded in itself, is a spiritual love, while licentious love, regarded in itself, is a natural love.
[2] That these delights are thus opposed to each other is not at all apparent. It is not apparent because the delight of an evil love outwardly counterfeits the delight of a good love. Inwardly, however, the delight of an evil love consists of nothing but evil lusts, evil itself being a conglomerate mass or pile of such lusts; whereas the delight of a good love consists of countless good affections, good itself being, so to speak, a cluster of such affections united together. This mass of the one and cluster of the other are not felt by a person except as the same delight; and because the delight arising from evil outwardly counterfeits the delight arising from good, as said, therefore the delight in adultery is not felt except as the delight in marriage. But after death, when everyone puts aside external appearances, and internal realities are laid bare, it then becomes evident to the sense that the evil of adultery is a mass of evil lusts, and that the good of marriage is a cluster of good affections; thus that they are altogether opposed to each other.
It is in accordance with this principle that one who is in a state of evil and weds himself to falsity, or who is in a state of falsity and takes evil as his consort, from the covenant thus formed sanctions adultery, and commits it insofar as he dares and is able. So, too, the reverse, that one who is in a state of good and weds himself to truth, or who is in a state of truth and takes good as his consort, confirms himself against adultery and for marriage, and embraces the blessed state of married life.
It can be seen from this that these two loves, licentious love and conjugial love, are opposed to each other as hell is to heaven and heaven to hell.
Who can believe that every delight of love is, in the spiritual world, made visible in the form of various sights, perceptible in the form of various odors, and observable in the form of various species of animals and birds?
Examples of sights under whose forms the lascivious delights of licentious love are made visible in hell are piles of excrement and dirt. Odors by which they are made perceptible are its stinks and stenches. And some of the species of animals and birds under whose forms those lascivious delights are made observable there are pigs, snakes, and birds called ochim* and tsiyyim**.
It is the converse, however, with the chaste delights of conjugial love in heaven. Examples of sights under whose forms those delights are made visible there are gardens and fields of flowers. Odors by which they are made perceptible are redolent aromas of fruits and fragrances of flowers. And some of the species of animals under whose forms those delights are made observable are lambs, young goats, doves, and birds of paradise.
The delights of their loves are turned into these and other like things because all the phenomena found in the spiritual world are correspondent forms. The inner qualities of their minds are turned into such correspondent forms when they pass over and become outward manifestations discernible to the senses.
It should be known, however, that there are countless varieties of unclean things into which the lascivious delights of licentious lusts are turned when they pass over into their correspondent forms. The varieties are distinguished, moreover, in accordance with the kinds and classes of those lascivious delights, which are described later on where we take up adultery and its degrees***. But in the case of people who have repented, such unclean things do not issue from the delights of their love, because they have been cleansed of them in the world.
* A Hebrew word (Oy), appearing only once in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:21). It seems to refer to howling or screeching creatures, perhaps screech owls, but the actual identity is unknown. It may not be a precise term. No. 264:4 identifies as a bird of the night.
** Another Hebrew word (Oy), appearing six times in the Old Testament (Psalms 72:9, 74:14; Isaiah 13:21, 23:13, 34:14; Jeremiah 50:39). It seems refer to desert dwellers, and in contexts suggesting animals, to desert creatures, but the actual identity is unknown. It, too, may not be a precise term.
*** See nos. 478ff.
[2] Because of the correspondence between filthy loves and piles of excrement and dirt, the children of Israel were commanded to carry a stake with them by which to cover their excrement, lest Jehovah their God, walking in the midst of their camp, see the nakedness of the thing and turn away (Deuteronomy 23:13,14). This was commanded, because the camp of the children of Israel represented the church, and those unclean elements corresponded to the lascivious delights of licentious lusts; and Jehovah God’s walking in the midst of their camp symbolically meant His presence in the company of angels. They were to cover those things for the reason that all those places are covered and closed over in hell where companies of such spirits live; which is why it is added, lest He see the nakedness of the thing. I was granted an opportunity to see that all places in hell are closed over; and also to experience that, when they were opened (which happened when a new demon was entering), such a foul-smelling odor arose from them that it made my stomach ill. Moreover, what is astonishing, those stenches are as delightful to them as piles of excrement are to pigs.
It is apparent from this how the statement should be interpreted, that uncleanness in the church springs from licentious love, and that cleanness in it springs from conjugial love.
[2] That the reverse is the case with adulterers clearly follows from the fundamental opposition of adultery to marriage, which is and has been the subject of this chapter. Namely, from the following: (1) That they are not spiritual but supremely natural; and the natural self separated from the spiritual self is human merely in respect to the intellect, but not in respect to the will. The natural self immerses the will in the body and lusts of the flesh, and at such times the intellect also accompanies it. That such a person is only half human, he himself can see from the reason of his own intellect, if he elevates it. (2) That adulterers are not wise except in their speech and in the way they also conduct themselves when in company with people prominent in status, with people renowned for their learning, or with people who are moral; but that alone among themselves they are insane, regarding the Divine and holy things of the church as meaningless, and defiling the moralities of life with shameless and unchaste depravities, as we will show in the chapter on adultery.* Who does not see that such impostors are human only in respect to their external figure, and that in respect to their internal form they are not human? (3) In my case, that I have personally observed that adulterers become less and less human from seeing them in hell, which has served me as clear confirmation of the fact. For in hell they are demons, and when seen in the light of heaven, their faces are as though full of pustules, their bodies as though hunchbacked, their speech rough, and their gestures theatrical.
[3] It should be known, however, that it is purposeful and deliberate adulterers who are of such a character, and not unthinking adulterers. For there are four kinds of adulterers (as discussed in the chapter on adultery and its degrees**): purposeful adulterers, who are prompted by a lust of the will; deliberate adulterers, who prompted by a persuasion of the intellect; cognizant adulterers, who are prompted by enticements of the senses; and unthinking adulterers, who do not possess the ability or freedom to consult the intellect. It is the first two kinds of adulterers who become less and less human. But the second two kinds become human as they retreat from those errors and afterwards become wise.
* Again, see nos. 478ff.
** Nos. 478ff.
The opposite experience, however, befalls purposeful adulterers and deliberate adulterers (as defined just above, at the end of no. 432). In their case the ability or virtue called virility decreases in vigor to the point that it is lost, and after that coldness sets in towards even any of the opposite sex, followed by a kind of loathing that approaches revulsion – something that is known, though seldom confessed. Of such a character are those adulterers in hell. This I have heard, at some distance away, from sirens in hell, who are worn-out figures of sexual lust, and also from brothels there.
It follows from these considerations that licentious love makes a person less and less human and less and less a man, while conjugial love makes a person more and more human and more and more a man.
Since there is nothing in the universe which does not have its opposite (see above, no. 425), it follows on that ground that, because there is an atmosphere of conjugial love, there is also an atmosphere opposite to it, which we call an atmosphere of licentious love; for those atmospheres are opposed to each other, as the love of adultery is opposed to the love of marriage – an opposition which we have described in the preceding discussions of this chapter.
[2] These two atmospheres do not combine because they are opposed, and things that are opposed do not act upon each other except as enemies, one of which is blazing with deadly hatred and attacks the other in rage, while the other is without any hatred but only possesses a zeal to protect itself.
It is apparent from this that these two atmospheres merely meet but do not combine together.
The middle ground which they create between them consists on the one hand of evil without falsity and of falsity without evil, and on the other hand of good without truth and of truth without good. These two can indeed border each other, but they cannot combine together.
I have heard from angels that they discern in outmost expressions what is lascivious from what is not lascivious as clearly as one discerns the fire of burning dung or horn by its foul odor from the fire of burning incense or cinnamon wood by its sweet aroma. Moreover, that this results from the difference in internal delights, which enter into the outward ones and form them.
[2] Now, because the origins of licentious love are merely the promptings and urges of the flesh, it is apparent that they are, in the spirit, sordid attractions, which excite and inflame according as they rise and subside and come and go.
Passions of the flesh in general, regarded in themselves, are nothing else than a conglomerate mass of lusts for evil and falsity. Hence comes this truth in the church, that “the flesh lusts against the spirit,”* meaning, against one’s spiritual self. It follows accordingly that the delights of the flesh connected with the delights of licentious love are nothing but the bubblings up of lusts, which in the spirit become outpourings of wanton immoralities.
* Galatians 5:17.
The delights of conjugial love become also delights of the spirit in the flesh for the reason that after the delights of licentious love have been removed (as described just above), the spirit, now freed of them, enters into the body chaste, filling the breast with the delights of its blessedness, and from the breast, also the ultimate expressions of that love in the body. Thus the spirit afterward acts in full partnership with those ultimate expressions, and they with the spirit.
We categorize them as natural, sensual and bodily delights, because the natural mind is distinguishable into three degrees. In the highest degree are natural people who, from a rational sight of them, see the insanities, and yet are carried away by their delights, like small boats in the current of a river. In the degree below that are natural people who see and judge only on the basis of the physical senses, spurning rational considerations contrary to their impressions and misconceptions and rejecting them as of no account. In the lowest degree are natural people who without considering are carried away by the beguiling fires of their body. The last are people whom we call the carnally natural; the ones before that, the sensually natural; and the first, merely natural.
Licentious love and its insanities and pleasures are, in these people, of like degrees.
The nature of the delights of licentious love and of those of conjugial love can be made clearer by comparing them to houses. The delights of licentious love may be compared to a house whose walls on the outside glow with a reddish hue like shellfish, or with a false hue of gold like specular stones* called selenites**, while the rooms inside within the walls contain piles of dirt and trash of every kind. In contrast, the delights of conjugial love may be likened to a house whose walls glisten as though of pure gold, and whose rooms within are sparkling, as though filled with treasure-troves of many precious things.
* A term formerly applied to stones of a transparent or semi-transparent substance, sometimes used as glass or for ornamental purposes, associated with species of mica, selenite and talc.
** A term in the 17th and 18th centuries often used of stones described by travelers or existing in collections. Perhaps to be identified with the mineral now so called, a variety of gypsum occurring in transparent crystalline or foliated forms.
After I finished my considerations of conjugial love and began reflecting on licentious love, suddenly two angels stood beside me and said, “We perceived and understood what you were thinking about before, but the things you are now pondering escape us, and we do not comprehend them. Omit them, because they are of no consequence.”
But I replied, “This love that I am considering now is not of no consequence, because it exists.”
To that they responded, “How can there be any love that does not exist from creation? Is it not conjugial love that exists from creation? Is this not a love between two people who have the capability of becoming one? How can there be a love which divides and separates them? What young man can love any other woman than the one who loves him in return? Must not the love in one recognize and acknowledge the love in the other – loves which, when they meet, of their own accord unite? Who can love someone in whom that love is missing? Is it not conjugial love alone that is mutual and reciprocal? If love is not reciprocal, does it not pull back and die?”
[2] On hearing this I asked the two angels what society of heaven they were from, and they said, “We are from the heaven of innocence.* We came into this world of heaven as little children and were raised under the Lord’s guidance. Moreover, after I became an adolescent youth, and my wife here with me a marriageable girl, we were betrothed and pledged, and at the earliest opportunity married. So, because we have known nothing regarding any other love than a truly wedded and conjugial love, therefore when your ideas were communicated to us concerning an alien love altogether opposed to our love, we did not comprehend any of them. Consequently we have come down to ask you why you are pondering notions so inconceivable. Tell us, then, how a love is possible which not only does not exist from creation, but is even contrary to creation. We regard things contrary to creation as matters having no reality.”
[3] When he said this, my heart rejoiced that I was given an opportunity to speak with angels of such innocence, who did not know at all what licentiousness was. I opened my mouth therefore and explained, saying, “Do you not know that there is such a thing as good and evil, and that good exists from creation, but not evil? And yet evil regarded in itself is not nothing, even though it is nothing good?
“Good exists from creation, and good moreover in the highest degree and in the least degree; and when this least good reduces to nothing, evil arises on the other side. Therefore there is no proportional relationship or progression of good to evil, but a proportional relationship and progression of good to a greater or lesser good, and of evil to a greater or lesser evil; for good and evil are opposites in every single respect.
“Now because good and evil are opposites, there is a middle ground, and in it an area of equilibrium, in which evil acts against good. But because evil does not prevail, it remains in the endeavor. Every person grows up in this equilibrium; and being an equilibrium between good and evil, or to say the same thing, between heaven and hell, it is a spiritual equilibrium, which produces a state of freedom in those who live in it. The Lord draws all people out of this equilibrium to Him, and the person who follows in freedom is led by Him out of evil into good, and thus into heaven.
“It is the same with love, especially in the case of conjugial love and licentious love. Conjugial love is good, while licentious love is evil. Every person who hears the voice of the Lord and follows Him in freedom is introduced by the Lord into conjugial love with all its delights and joys. But the person who does not hear and does not follow introduces himself into licentious love, entering at first into its delights, but afterwards into its distresses, and finally into its miseries.”
[4] My having said that, the two angels asked, “How could evil come into existence when nothing but good existed from creation? For anything to exist it must have an origin. Good could not be the origin of evil, because evil is nothing good, being rather the negation and destruction of good. But still, because evil exists and is experienced, it is not nothing, but something. Tell us, therefore, from what this something, after having no existence, came into existence.”
To that I replied, “This secret cannot be explained unless it is known that no one is good but God alone,** and that nothing is good that is good in itself unless it is from God. Consequently it is the person who looks to God and wills to be led by God who is motivated by good. But the person who turns away from God and wills to be led by himself is not motivated by good; for the good that he does is either for the sake of himself or for the sake of the world; thus it is either merit-seeking, or feigned, or hypocritical. From this it is apparent that man himself is the origin of evil – not that that origin was infused into man from creation, but that by turning from God to self he infused it into himself.
“This origin of evil did not exist in Adam and his wife until the serpent said, ‘…in the day you eat of (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)…you will be like God’ (Genesis 3:5). And then, because they turned away from God, and turned to themselves as though to a god, they created in themselves the origin of evil. Eating of that tree symbolized their believing that a person knows good and evil and is wise on his own, and not from God.”
[5] But then the two angels asked, “How could man turn away from God and turn to himself, when a person can will nothing, think nothing, and so do nothing except from God. Why did God permit it?”
However, I replied, “Man was so created that everything he wills, thinks and does appears to him as being in him and thus from him. Without this appearance a person would not be a human being, for he would be unable to receive anything of good and truth or of love and wisdom, retain it, and seemingly adopt it as his own. Consequently it follows that without this, as it were, living appearance, man would not have any conjunction with God, and so neither any eternal life. But if as a result of this appearance he persuades himself to the belief that he wills, thinks, and thus does good of himself, and not from the Lord (even though to all appearance as though of himself), he turns good into evil in him, and so creates in him the origin of evil. This was Adam’s sin.
[6] “But let me explain this matter a little more clearly. The Lord views every person by looking at his forehead, and this sight passes to the back of his head. Behind the forehead is the cerebrum, and in the back of the head the cerebellum. The cerebrum is devoted to wisdom and its truths, while the cerebellum is devoted to love and its goods. Therefore a person who looks with his face to the Lord receives wisdom from him, and through that wisdom, love. But a person who looks away from the Lord receives love and not wisdom; and love without wisdom is love that originates with man and not from the Lord. Moreover, because this love allies itself with falsities, it does not acknowledge God, but embraces itself as a god; and this it tacitly defends by the person’s faculty of understanding and of becoming wise as though of himself, implanted in him from creation. Thus this love is the origin of evil.
“The fact of this can be visibly demonstrated. I will call here some evil spirit who has turned away from God, and I will speak to him from behind or at the back of his head. And you will see that the things I say are turned into their opposites.”
[7] So I summoned such a spirit. He came, and I spoke to him from behind, saying, “Do you know anything about hell, damnation, and the torment there?” Then, when he turned around to face me, I asked, “What did you hear?”
He replied: “I heard the following. ‘Do you know anything about heaven, salvation, and the happiness there?'”
Afterwards then, when I repeated his answer to him from behind, he said that he heard what I had said at first.
After that I said to him from behind, “Do you know that people in hell are insane because of their falsities?” And on my asking him about this, as to what he had heard, he said, “I heard, ‘Do you know that people in heaven are wise because of their truths?’
Again, when I repeated this answer to him from behind, he said that he heard, “Do you know that people in hell are insane because of their falsities?”
And so it went. From which it became plainly apparent that when the mind is turned away from the Lord, it turns to itself, so that it then perceives things in a contrary way.
“That is the reason,” I said, “that, as you know, in this spiritual world, no one is permitted to stand behind another and speak to him; for he thus infuses into the other his love, which the other’s intelligence then yields to and obeys because of the delight attached to it, but which, being from man and not from God, is a love of evil or a love of falsity.
[8] “In addition to this, I will relate to you another, similar occurrence, namely, that I have several times heard goods and truths descend from heaven into hell, and they were gradually turned there into their opposites – good into evil, and truth into falsity. The reason for this phenomenon is the same, namely, that all who are in hell turn away from the Lord.”
After listening to this, the two angels thanked me and said, “Because you are now thinking and writing about a love that is contrary to our conjugial love, and because anything contrary to that love saddens our minds, we will leave you.”
And as they bade me farewell, I asked them not to report anything concerning this love to their brothers and sisters in heaven, because it would injure their innocence.
I can declare for a certainty that people who die as little children grow up in heaven, and when they attain a stature like that of youths eighteen years old and of girls fifteen years old in the world, they stop there, and marriages are then provided for them by the Lord. Moreover, that both before marriage and after it, they do not know at all what licentiousness is, or that it is possible.
* I.e., the third heaven. See no. 410.
** Matthew 19:17.
444r. [repeated] FORNICATION
By fornication we mean the lust of an adolescent youth or young man, experienced before marriage with a fallen woman. However, lust experienced with a woman not fallen, that is, with a virgin or with someone else’s wife, is not fornication; but with a virgin it is debauchery, and with someone else’s wife, adultery.
How these latter two differ from fornication cannot be seen by any rational person unless he clearly sees love for the opposite sex in its degrees and diversities, placing its chaste forms on one side and its unchaste forms on the other, and dividing each side into classes and types so as to distinguish between them. Otherwise the difference between what is more chaste and what is less chaste, and between what is more unchaste and what is less unchaste, cannot appear in anyone’s idea of them; and without these distinctions, every means of comparison is lost, and at the same time any clarity of sight in matters of judgment. The intellect is then enveloped in such darkness that it does not know how to distinguish fornication from adultery, and still less the milder forms of fornication from its more serious ones, likewise the milder forms of adultery from its more serious ones. Thus it mixes evils together, and out of diverse evils makes one sauce, and out of diverse goods, one paste.
Therefore, in order that love for the opposite sex may be known in its distinctions on the side in which it inclines and progresses to licentious love that is altogether opposed to conjugial love, it is expedient that we examine its first step, which is fornication. This we will do according to the following outline:
(1) Fornication is the product of a love for the opposite sex.
(2) This love arises when the adolescent youth begins to think and act in accordance with his own intellect, and the sound of his voice begins to become manly.
(3) Fornication is the mark of a natural person.
(4) Fornication is lust, but not the lust of adultery.
(5) In some men a love for the opposite sex cannot, without harmful effects, be totally restrained from going out into fornication.
(6) Therefore in populous cities brothels are tolerated.
(7) A lust to fornicate is light in the measure that it looks to conjugial love and prefers it.
(8) A lust to fornicate is serious in the measure that it looks to adultery.
(9) A lust to fornicate is more serious as it verges toward a lust for variety and toward a lust to deflower.
(10) The atmosphere of a lust to fornicate, as it is in its beginning, is intermediate between the atmosphere of licentious love and the atmosphere of conjugial love, and forms the point of equilibrium.
(11) Care must be exercised to prevent conjugial love from being lost as a result of excessive and unrestrained fornications.
(12) For the conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion.
(13) In men who are not yet able for various reasons to enter into marriage, and because of their salaciousness cannot contain their lusts, this conjugial ideal may be preserved if their promiscuous love for the opposite sex becomes restricted to a single courtesan.
(14) Resorting to a courtesan is preferable to promiscuous lust, provided that the arrangement is not made with more than one, or with a virgin or untouched woman, or with a married woman, and that it is kept separate from conjugial love.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
Who can conclude that it is not possible for a person who has fornicated to be more chaste in marriage?
At that time a revolution occurs in the mind. Previously the intellect thought only in accordance with ideas instilled in the memory, thinking in terms of them and being governed by them. Afterwards it thinks in accordance with reason about them. And then, guided by its love, it disposes the matters residing in the memory into a new order, and establishes its own life in conformity to it, so that it progressively thinks more and more in accordance with its reason, and wills more and more in harmony with its freedom.
[2] People know that a love for the opposite sex follows the commencement of a youth’s own intellect and develops in accordance with its force – evidence that that love ascends as the intellect ascends, and descends as the intellect descends. By its ascending we mean an ascent into wisdom; and by its descending we mean a descent into madness. It is wisdom to restrain one’s love for the opposite sex, and madness to let it go unchecked. If it is let go into fornication, which is the first stage in its activity, it ought to be controlled in accordance with principles of honor and morality, principles which have been implanted in the memory and from that in the reason, and which afterwards should be implanted in the reason and from that in the memory.
As for the observation that, with the commencement of a youth’s own intellect, the sound of his voice also begins to become manly, the reason is that it is his intellect which thinks and which through thought speaks – evidence that it is the intellect which makes the man and also his masculinity; consequently, that according as his intellect is elevated, so does he become a human man and also a manly man (see above, nos. 432, 433).
Every person is born carnal, becomes sensual, then natural, and gradually rational; and if he does not stop there, he becomes spiritual. He develops in this way in order that planes of existence may be formed for higher planes to rest on, like a palace on its foundations. The lowest plane with the things built on it may also be likened to a piece of ground, in which, having been prepared, noble seeds are planted.
[2] As regards love for the opposite sex in particular, it, too, is at first carnal, for it begins in the flesh. It then becomes sensual, for the five senses take delight from its general sensation. After that it becomes natural, being much like the same love in animals, because it is an indiscriminate love for the opposite sex. However, because the human being was born to become spiritual, it later becomes naturally rational, and from being naturally rational, spiritual, and finally spiritually natural; and at that point the now spiritual love flows into and acts upon the rational love, and through that the sensual love, and through that finally the love that is in the body and flesh. Thus, because these last form its lowest plane, it acts upon it spiritually, and at the same time rationally and sensually. It flows in and acts upon these planes sequentially when a person thinks about it, but simultaneously when he is in the lowest plane.
[3] Fornication is the mark of a natural person because it flows directly from a natural love for the opposite sex. This love may be naturally rational, but not spiritual, because a love for the opposite sex cannot become spiritual until it becomes conjugial love. From being natural, love for the opposite sex becomes spiritual when a person turns away from indiscriminate lust and devotes himself to one, to whose soul he unites his soul.
1. It springs from the natural self, and everything that springs from the natural self has in it animal desire and lust; for the natural self is nothing but an abode and receptacle of animal desires and lusts, inasmuch as all blameworthy characteristics inherited from parents are seated there.
2. A fornicator casts his gaze upon the opposite sex indiscriminately and promiscuously, and does not direct it as yet to one of the sex; and as long as he is in that state, it is lust that moves him to do what he does. But according as he turns his eyes to one, and loves uniting his life with hers, his desire turns into chaste affection, and his lust into human love.
It is apparent from this that the natural love, which is a love for the opposite sex, precedes the spiritual love, which is a love for one of the sex. If then fornication ensues from a natural love for the opposite sex, it can also be wiped away, provided conjugial love is looked to, hoped for and sought as the principal good.
[2] It is altogether different with the lascivious and obscene love of adultery. We have already shown in the preceding chapter, on the opposition of licentious love to conjugial love, that this love is opposed to conjugial love and destroys it. Consequently, if a purposeful or deliberate adulterer for various reasons enters the marriage bed, the case is reversed. The natural love with its lascivious and obscene lusts then lies hidden within, while the appearance of spiritual one covers it outwardly.
Reason can see from this that the lust in fornication is relatively moderate compared to the lust of adultery, being like the first cooling of the year compared to the cold of midwinter in arctic regions.
[2] Fornication is light in the measure that it looks to conjugial love for the reason that the person then looks, from the unchaste state in which he is, toward a chaste state. Moreover, to the extent that he prefers the chaste state, he is to that extent also in it in regard to his intellect; and to the extent that he not only prefers it, but also prizes it more, he is in it as well in regard to his will, thus in regard to his inner self. If he nevertheless persists in fornicating, it is then to him a necessity, for reasons that he has examined in himself.
[3] There are two reasons which make fornication light in the case of those who prefer the married state and prize it more. The first is that married life is for them the purpose, intention or end. The second is that they keep evil separate from good in them.
As regards the first reason, that married life is for them the purpose, intention or end – that is because a person is a person of such a character as he is in his purpose, intention or end, and so he also appears to the Lord and to angels; indeed, so he is also regarded by wise men in the world. For the intention is the soul in all actions, and it forms the basis for condemnations and exonerations in the world, and imputations after death.
[4] As regards the second reason, that people who prefer conjugial love to the lust of fornication keep evil separate from good, thus keeping what is unchaste separate from what is chaste – that is because they separate them in perception and intention; and those who separate these two in perception and intention before they are in a good or chaste state are also separated and purified from the evil of that lust when they come into a conjugial state. This does not happen in the case of those who in fornication look to adultery, as will be seen in the discussion that follows next.
It is evident in itself that such people do not have in them a good or chaste purpose, intention or end to exonerate them, nor a separation of evil from good, or of what is unchaste from what is chaste, to enable them to be purified, as there is in those who from a state of fornication look to conjugial love and prefer it (as described in the preceding article, no. 452).
[2] I am able to corroborate these assertions by the following new confirmation from heaven. I have met many spirits who, in the world, had lived like others in outward appearances – dressing grandly, dining elegantly, doing business like others at a profit, attending theatrical performances, joking about the actions of lovers in a seemingly lustful manner, and other like things. And yet angels attributed these things to some as sinful evils, and to others as not evil, declaring the former guilty, but the latter innocent. Upon my asking the reason for this, when the people had done the same things, the angels replied that they regard everyone in the light of his purpose, intention or end, and make distinctions accordingly; and that they therefore excuse or condemn those whom the end excuses or condemns, since an end for good is the end of all in heaven, and an end for evil the end of all in hell. This, too, they said, and nothing else, is meant by the Lord’s words, “Judge not, that you be not condemned.”* (Matthew 7:1)
* The text here follows the translation of Sebastian Schmidt, Biblia Sacra, Argentorati (Strasburg), 1696.
[2] The atmosphere of a lust to fornicate is intermediate between these two atmospheres and forms the point of equilibrium for the reason that when anyone is in it, he can turn himself in the direction of the atmosphere of conjugial love, which is to say, toward that love, and also in the direction of the atmosphere of a love of adultery, which is to say, toward the love of it. However, if he turns toward conjugial love, he turns himself to heaven; if toward a love of adultery, he turns himself to hell. Either alternative is at the person’s option, pleasure and will, in order that he may act freely in accordance with his reason, and not from instinct, thus that he may be a human being, adopting what flows in for himself, and not an animal, which adopts nothing of anything flowing in for itself.
We say the lust to fornicate as it is in its beginning, because it is then in its intermediate state. Who does not know that whatever a person does in the beginning originates from lust, because it originates from the natural self? And who does not know that that lust is not imputed to him when, from being natural, he becomes spiritual? It is the same with the lust of fornication when the person’s love becomes conjugial.
Such cases of fornication are contemptible orgies which turn conjugial sports into tragic scenes. For unrestrained and excessive fornications are like fires which rise up from below and ravage the body, searing the fibers, polluting the blood, and corrupting the rational elements of the mind. Indeed, they burst up like a fire from the basement into the house, totally consuming it.
Care must be exercised by parents to prevent this from happening, because an adolescent boy impelled by lust is not yet able in accordance with reason to impose restraint upon himself.
Conjugial love is the precious jewel of human life because the character of a person’s life is such as the character of that love in him, that love forming the inmost element of his life. For it is the life of wisdom dwelling together with its love, and of love dwelling together with its wisdom, and thus it is the life of the delights of both. In a word, a person is a living soul as a result of that love. That is why we call the conjugial union of one man with one wife the precious jewel of human life.
[2] This conclusion is supported by observations made above: that truly conjugial friendship, trust and potency are possible with only one wife, because only then is there a union of minds (nos. 333, 334); that in and from that union spring the celestial blessings, spiritual felicities and natural delights which from the beginning have been provided for people who are in a state of truly conjugial love (no. 335); that this love is the fundamental love of all celestial, spiritual, and consequently natural loves (nos. 65-67); and that into this love have been gathered all joys and all delights, from the first to the last of them (nos. 68, 69). Moreover, in Delights of Wisdom Relating to Conjugial Love, which forms Part One of this work, it was fully shown that regarded in its origin, this love is the interplay of wisdom and love.
People know that in countries where there are governmental services, marriages cannot be contracted by many until past early manhood, because positions must first be earned and the means acquired for supporting a home and family before they can for the first time seek a suitable wife. And yet the wellspring of virility in the preceding age can with few be kept closed up and reserved for a wife. It is preferable, indeed, that it be reserved. But if, owing to an uncontrollable intensity of lust, it cannot be, an intermediary course is required to prevent conjugial love from in the meantime perishing. In support of its being to resort to a courtesan are the following arguments:
1. By this means excessive and promiscuous fornications are curbed and limited, and the person thus introduced into a more restricted state, more akin to married life.
[2] 2. Sexual desire – boiling at first and as though consuming with fire – is calmed and softened, and thus the lasciviousness of salaciousness, in itself foul, is tempered by something analogous to marriage.
[3] 3. By resorting to a courtesan the virile forces are not cast away and imbecilities contracted, as they are by indiscriminate and unrestricted indulgences of sexual lust.
[4] 4. By it physical diseases and mental insanities are also avoided.
[5] 5. By it adulteries are likewise guarded against, which are illicit affairs with married women, and also debaucheries, which are violations of virgins; not to mention criminal acts too villainous to name. For when a boy first reaches adolescence, he thinks of adulteries and debaucheries as being no more than acts of fornication, thus that one is no different from another. Nor does he know in accordance with reason how to resist the enticements of some of the sex, who have carefully cultivated the art of harlotry. But in resorting to a courtesan, which is a more temperate and rational form of fornication, he can learn and see the distinctions.
[6] 6. By resorting to a courtesan one is kept away from four kinds of lusts which are destructive of conjugial love in the highest degree, namely, a lust to deflower, a lust for variety, a lust to rape, and a lust to seduce states of innocence (which we will take up in considerations later on*).
None of this has been said, however, for those who can contain the heat of their lust; nor for those who are able to enter marriage as soon as they mature so as to offer and extend the first fruits of their manhood to their wife.
* See the chapters on these subjects, nos. 501ff, 506ff, 511f, 513f.
1. An arrangement with a courtesan must not be made with more than one, because with more than one a polygamous element enters, inducing in the person a merely natural state and dragging him down into a sensual one, to the point that he cannot be elevated into a spiritual state, which is necessary for conjugial love (see nos. 338, 339).
[2] 2. The arrangement must not be made with a virgin or untouched woman, because conjugial love in women is coupled with their virginity. From it comes the chastity, purity and sanctity of that love. Consequently, for a woman to promise and commit her virginity to some man is to give a token that she will love him to eternity. Because of that a virgin cannot with any rational assent pledge it except with the promise of a conjugial covenant. It is also the crown of her honor. Therefore to snatch it away without a covenant of marriage and afterwards reject her is to make a trollop of some virgin who might have become a chaste bride and wife, or to cheat some other man, either of which is hurtful. Accordingly, if anyone takes a virgin as a his courtesan, he may indeed cohabit with her and so introduce her into the friendship of love, but still with the constant intention of making her his wife if she is not unfaithful.
[3] 3. An arrangement with a courtesan clearly must not be made with a married woman, because that is adultery.
[4] 4. The love in resorting to a courtesan must be kept separate from conjugial love for the reason that these loves are different in nature and therefore ought not to be mixed together. For the love in resorting to a courtesan is an unchaste, natural and external love, while the love in marriage is chaste, spiritual and internal. The love in resorting to a courtesan divides the souls of the two and joins only the sensual elements of the body, whereas the love in marriage unites their souls, and as a result of the union of their souls, also the sensual elements of the body, until from being two they become as one, which is to say, one flesh.
[5] 5. The love in resorting to a courtesan enters only into the intellect and into such elements as depend on the intellect. But the love in marriage enters also into the will and into such elements as depend on the will, thus into each and every element of the person. Consequently, if the love in resorting to a courtesan becomes the kind of love found in marriage, the man cannot by any right withdraw from the relationship without violating the conjugial union; and if he does withdraw from it, and marries another, in the breaking of that union conjugial love perishes. A man should know that the love in resorting to a courtesan is kept separate from conjugial love by his not promising to marry the courtesan and by his not leading her on into any hope of marriage.
Nevertheless, it is preferable that the torch of love for the opposite sex be kindled for the first time with one’s wife.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I once spoke with a newly arrived spirit who, when he lived in the world, thought much about heaven and hell. (By newly arrived spirits I mean people recently deceased, who, being then spiritual beings, are called spirits.) As soon as this spirit came into the spiritual world, he began to think as before about heaven and hell; and when thinking about heaven he seemed to himself to be in a state of joy, and when thinking about hell, in a state of despondency.
When he noticed that he was in the spiritual world, he at once asked where heaven was and where hell was, and also what the one and the other were and what they were like.
To which the people he asked replied, “Heaven is above your head and hell beneath your feet, for you are now in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell. However, as to what heaven and hell are and what they are like, this we cannot describe in a few words.”
So, then, because he burned with a desire to know, he threw himself on his knees and prayed earnestly to God to be instructed. And suddenly an angel appeared at his right side, who raised him up and said, “You have begged to be instructed regarding heaven and hell. Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know.” After which statement the angel rose and vanished.
[2] Then the newly arrived spirit said to himself, “What does this mean, ‘Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like’?”
However, departing from that place he wandered about, speaking to the people he met and saying, “Pray tell me, please, what delight is.”
And some said, “What sort of question is this? Who does not know what delight is? Is it not joy and gladness? Therefore delight is delight, one being like another. We do not know of any distinction between them.”
Others said that delight was a laughter of the mind; “for when the mind laughs,” they said, “the face is merry, the speech jocular, the conduct playful, and the whole person in a state of delight.”
Still others said, “Delight is nothing else than to dine and eat fine foods, and to drink and become drunk on excellent wine, and then to converse on various subjects, especially regarding the sports of Venus and Cupid.”
[3] On hearing their replies, the newly arrived spirit said in annoyance to himself, “These responses are oafish and uninformed. Such delights are not heaven or hell. If only I could meet people who are wise!”
So he departed from the people he was with and inquired, “Where can I find people who are wise?”
He was observed, then, by a certain angelic spirit, who said to him, “I perceive that you are fired by a desire to know what the universal characteristic of heaven is and the universal characteristic of hell; and because it is delight, I will take you to the top of a hill where daily assemblies convene of people who examine effects, of people who investigate causes, and of people who explore ends. There are three companies. Those who examine effects are called spirits of empirical knowledge, and, abstractly, forms of such knowledge; those who investigate causes are called spirits of intelligence – abstractly, forms of intelligence; and those who explore ends are called spirits of wisdom – abstractly, forms of wisdom. In the heaven directly above them are angels who from ends see causes, and from causes, effects. It is from these angels that the three companies have their enlightenment.”
[4] Taking the newly arrived spirit by the hand, the angelic spirit then led him to the hilltop, to the company composed of those who explore ends and are called forms of wisdom.
To them the newly arrived spirit said, “Pardon me for coming up here to you. I have ascended because from childhood I have thought about heaven and hell, and have recently come into this world; and some of the people with whom I was then associated told me that in this world heaven is above my head and hell beneath my feet. But they did not say what the one and the other are and what they are like. Consequently, being made anxious from constant thought about them, I prayed to God; and an angel then appeared beside me, who said, ‘Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know.’ I have inquired, but so far in vain. I entreat you therefore to please explain to me what delight is.”
[5] To this the forms of wisdom replied, “Delight is the whole of life for all in heaven and the whole of life for all in hell. In the case of those who are in heaven it is a delight in goodness and truth, while in the case of those who are in hell it is a delight in evil and falsity. For all delight is a matter of love, and love is the very essence of a person’s life. So, then, as a person is the kind of person he is according to the character of his love, so also is he the kind of person he is according to the character of his delight. The activity of love causes the sensation of delight. Its activity in heaven is accompanied by wisdom, while its activity in hell is accompanied by irrationality. Each produces in its subjects a feeling of delight; but the heavens and the hells experience opposite delights, because they have opposite loves. The heavens are directed by a love of, and thus a delight in, doing good, whereas the hells are directed by a love of, and thus a delight in, doing evil. Consequently, if you know what delight is, you will know what heaven and hell are and what they are like.
“But inquire and learn further what delight is from those who investigate causes and are called forms of intelligence. They are over there to the right of us.”
[6] So the newly arrived spirit left and went over to that company, and explaining the reason for his coming, entreated them to tell him what delight was.
They, then, glad at the inquiry, said, “It is true that anyone who knows what delight is also knows what heaven and hell are and what they are like. The will, which makes a person the person he is, is not moved even the least bit except by delight; for the will, regarded in itself, is nothing but the action and effect of some love, thus of delight, inasmuch as it is some element of fancy, liking and pleasure which causes one to will. Moreover, because it is the will that impels the intellect to think, there is not the least idea existing in the thought which does not flow in from a delight of the will.
“This is as it is because the Lord activates all the elements of the soul and all the elements of the mind in angels, spirits and men through an influx from Him, and this through an influx of love and wisdom; and this influx is the underlying activity from which springs every delight, which in its origin is called bliss, happiness and felicity, and in its descent delight, gratification and pleasure, and in its universal sensation, good.
“But spirits in hell turn everything into its opposite in them, thus turning also good into evil and truth into falsity, with a constantly enduring delight. For without the continuance of delight they would have no will, neither any sensation, thus no life.
“It is apparent from this what the delight of hell is and its character and origin, likewise what the delight of heaven is and its character and origin.”
[7] After hearing this, the newly arrived spirit was taken to the third company, where the people were those who examine effects and are called forms of empirical knowledge.
These said to him, “Go down into the land below, then go up into the land above. In the first you will perceive and feel the delights of spirits in hell, and in the other the delights of angels in heaven.”
However, suddenly then, at some distance from them, the ground opened, and through the opening ascended three devils, seemingly on fire owing to the delight of their love. At that, because they perceived that it had been provided that the three come up from hell, the people who were with the newly arrived spirit said to them, “Do not come any closer, but from where you are tell us something about your delights.”
So the devils said, “Be assured that everyone, whether good or evil, is in the enjoyment of his delight – a good person in the enjoyment of the delight of his good, and an evil person in the enjoyment of the delight of his evil.”
The people then asked, “What delight do you have?”
The devils said that it was the delight of whoring, stealing, deceiving others, and blaspheming.
Again, then, the people asked, “What kind of delights are these?”
The devils replied that they were perceived by others as being like the foul odors of piles of excrement, like the putrid smells of corpses, and like the fetid stenches of stagnant pools of urine.
Whereupon the people asked, “Do you find these things delightful?”
“Most delightful,” the devils said.
At that the people said, “Then you are like unclean animals that dwell in such filth.”
But the devils replied, “If we are, we are; but to our nostrils these things are delightful.”
[8] The people then asked if the devils had anything further to say.
They said that it is permitted everyone to be in the enjoyment of his delight, even one most unclean (as others term it), provided he does not molest good spirits and angels. “But because our delight is such that we cannot help but molest them,” they said, “we have been thrown into workhouses where we suffer terrible hardships. It is the restricting and rescinding of our delights there is that is called the torment of hell. It is also an interior suffering.”
Thereupon the people asked, “Why did you molest good spirits?”
The devils said they could not help it. It is as though a kind of madness invades them whenever they see some angel and feel the Divine atmosphere surrounding him.
At that the people said, “Then you are also like wild animals.”
And a few moments later, when the devils saw the newly arrived spirit in association with angels, a madness came over them, which appeared as the fire of hatred. Therefore, to prevent them from doing any harm, they were cast back into hell.
After that the angels appeared who from ends see causes, and through causes, effects, who dwelt in the heaven above the three companies. They were seen in the midst of a bright white light, which, winding downward in spiral revolutions, bore with it a wreath of flowers, which it placed on the head of the newly arrived spirit. At the same time, then, the declaration was made to him from there, “This laurel is given to you because from childhood you have thought about heaven and hell.”
In the preceding chapter where we took up fornication, we discussed also resorting to a courtesan, and by that we meant the arranged liaison of an unmarried man with a woman. In contrast, by taking a mistress here we mean the similarly arranged liaison of a married man with a woman. People who do not distinguish between classes of things use these two expressions indiscriminately, as though they had the same meaning and so the same implication. But since the circumstances are of two kinds, and the expression, resorting to a courtesan, fits the first, because a courtesan is a fallen woman, and the expression, taking a mistress, fits the second, because a mistress is a substitute partner of the bed, therefore, for the sake of distinction, we designate an arranged liaison with a woman prior to marriage by the expression, resorting to a courtesan, and an arranged liaison subsequent to marriage by taking a mistress.
[2] We discuss the taking of a mistress here for the sake of an ordered consideration; for from an ordered consideration the nature of marriage is discovered on the one hand, and the nature of adultery on the other. We showed to begin with that marriage and adultery are opposed, in the chapter on the opposition of the two.* But the extent to which they are opposed, and in what way, cannot be assimilated except in the light of intermediate courses which lie in between, which include also the taking of a mistress.
However, because this relationship is of two kinds, and kinds which must be altogether differentiated, therefore the present consideration, like previous ones, must be divided into its component parts. This we will do as follows:
(1) The taking of a mistress is of two kinds, which differ greatly from each other, one being in conjunction with the wife, the other in separation from the wife.
(2) Taking a mistress in conjunction with the wife is altogether forbidden to Christians and abhorrent.
(3) It is polygamy, which has been banned from the Christian world, and ought to be banned.
(4) It is licentiousness, by which the conjugial inclination, the precious treasure of Christian life, is lost.
(5) Taking a mistress in separation from the wife, when done for legitimate, just and truly weighty reasons, is not forbidden.
(6) Legitimate reasons for taking a mistress in such a circumstance are the same as those for legitimate divorce, when the wife is nevertheless retained in the home.
(7) Just reasons for taking a mistress in such a circumstance are the same as those for separation from the bed.
(8) Weighty reasons for taking a mistress in such a circumstance are real and unreal.
(9) Weighty reasons that are real are ones which are founded on justice.
(10) But weighty reasons that are not real are ones which are not founded on justice, even though on an appearance of justice.
(11) Men who take a mistress for legitimate, just and real weighty reasons may be at the same time in a state of conjugial love.
(12) As long as this relationship with a mistress continues, physical conjunction with the wife is prohibited.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* See “The Opposition of Licentious Love to Conjugial Love,” nos. 423ff.
[2] These two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress are as disparate from each other as dirty linen is from clean; and this can be seen by people who examine matters keenly and distinctly, but not by people who view them confusedly and indistinctly. Indeed, it can be seen by those who are in a state of conjugial love, but not by those who are caught up in a love of adultery. The first are in the light of day with respect to all the derivative offshoots of love for the opposite sex, but the latter in the darkness of night with respect to them.
However, even those caught up in adultery can see these offshoots and the distinctions between them – not, indeed, in and of themselves, but from hearing others’ discussions of them, inasmuch as the same faculty for elevating his intellect exists in the adulterer as in the chaste married partner. It is only that the adulterer, after acknowledging the distinctions on hearing them from others, then wipes them away when he immerses his intellect in his own sordid pleasure. For chasteness and unchasteness, and sanity and insanity, cannot exist together, but may be distinguished by a detached intellect.
[3] In the spiritual world I once asked some people who did not regard adulteries as sins whether they knew of a single distinction between fornication, resorting to a courtesan, the two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress, and various degrees of adultery. They said that one was the same as another. Then, when I asked them whether this was true of marriage as well, they looked around to see whether any of the clergy were around, and on not seeing any, they said that in itself it was the same. In contrast were people who, in the ideas of their thought, regarded adulteries as sins. These said that they saw, in their interior ideas which were a matter of perception, some distinctions, but that they had not yet made an effort to analyze them and differentiate between them.
This I can declare, that the distinctions are perceived in their smallest particulars by angels in heaven.
Consequently, in order to make clear that there are two kinds of circumstance in taking a mistress antithetical to each other, one of which destroys conjugial love, the other of which does not, therefore we will describe first the injurious kind, and afterwards the other, uninjurious one.
The man himself who takes a mistress in such a circumstance does not see that it is abhorrent, because with the closing of heaven comes spiritual insanity. But a chaste wife sees it clearly, because she is the embodiment of conjugial love, and this love is revolted by such an action. For that reason, too, many of them subsequently refuse physical union with their husbands, as something that would contaminate their chastity by a contagious communication of the lust clinging to the husbands from their harlots.
As for the point that polygamy has been banned and ought to be banned from the Christian world, this we established in the chapter on polygamy, especially by the following considerations there: that it is not lawful for a Christian to have more than one wife (no. 338); that if a Christian takes more than one, he commits not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well (no. 339); and that polygamy was permitted to the Israelite nation because in it the Christian Church did not exist (no. 340).
It is apparent from this that to take a mistress in addition to one’s wife and to share a bed with each is a foul form of polygamy.
With respect to the first, it can be seen that taking a mistress simultaneously or conjointly with the wife is a form of licentiousness more opposed to conjugial love than ordinary licentiousness that is called simple adultery, from the following considerations:
Ordinary licentiousness or simple adultery does not involve a love analogous to conjugial love, for it is only an urge of the flesh which immediately subsides, and which sometimes leaves behind it not a trace of any love for the woman. Consequently, if this boiling over of lasciviousness is not purposeful or deliberate, and if the adulterer repents of it, it takes away only a little something from conjugial love.
It is otherwise with polygamous licentiousness. It does involve a love analogous to conjugial love; for it does not subside, fade, and disappear after boiling over as the former does, but remains, grows and ensconces itself, and in the same measure it takes away from love for the wife and induces a coldness toward her instead. Indeed, the man then regards the harlot who shares his bed as lovable because of the freedom of will he has in being able to withdraw if he chooses – a trait that is inborn in the natural self and which, because it is therefore pleasing, supports that love. And furthermore, with all its allurements he has with the mistress a closer union than with his wife. On the other hand, he does not regard his wife as lovable because of the obligation he has of living with her, an obligation enjoined on him by a covenant for life, which he then perceives as all the more compelled because of the freedom he has with the other. It follows that love for the married partner cools in the same degree that love for the adulterous one grows warmer, and that the first is despised in the measure that the latter is prized.
[2] With respect to the second point, it can be seen that taking a mistress simultaneously or conjointly with the wife robs a man of every capacity for and inclination to married life which is present in Christians from birth, from the following considerations:
In the measure that love for the married partner is transferred to love for a mistress, in the same measure it is taken away, depleted and dissipated with respect to the married partner, as shown just above. This comes about as a result of the closing of the interior elements of the man’s natural mind and the opening of its lower ones, as may be seen from considering that the seat of the inclination in Christians to love one of the opposite sex is in the inmost elements of a person, and from the fact that this seat can be closed off, although not eradicated.
An inclination to love one of the opposite sex, and with it a capacity for receiving that love, has been implanted in Christians from birth, for the reason that this love comes from the Lord alone and has been made part of their religion, and because in Christianity the Lord’s Divinity is acknowledged and worshiped, and religion is derived from His Word. Hence the implantation of that inclination, and also its transmission from generation to generation.
We said that this Christian conjugial inclination is lost by polygamous licentiousness, but what we mean is that it is closed up and cut off in the Christian polygamist. However, it may still be reawakened in his descendants, as happens in the instance of the likeness of a grandfather or great grandfather reappearing in a grandson or great grandson. That is why we call this conjugial inclination the precious treasure of Christian life, and above in nos. 457, 458, the precious jewel of human life and the repository of Christian religion.
[3] It is clearly apparent that by polygamous licentiousness this conjugial inclination is lost in a Christian who engages in it, from the fact that it is impossible for him to love a mistress and a wife equally in the way that a polygamous Muslim can. Rather, the more he loves the mistress, the less he loves his wife, or the warmer he grows toward the first, the colder he becomes to the latter. Moreover, what is even more despicable, in the same measure, too, he at heart accepts the Lord only as a natural man and Mary’s son, and not at the same time the Son of God, and to that extent also attaches little importance to religion.
It should be properly recognized, however, that this is what happens in the case of those who take a mistress in addition to the wife and engage in a physical union with both; and not at all in the case of those who for legitimate, just and truly weighty reasons separate and disunite themselves from the wife in respect to physical love, substituting another woman in her stead. Consideration of the latter kind of circumstance in taking a mistress now follows.
To these is added malicious desertion which involves licentiousness, causing the wife to commit whoredom and so to be rejected (Matthew 5:32).**
These three instances, because they are legitimate grounds for divorce – the first and third before a public judge, and the second before the husband as judge – are also legitimate grounds for taking a mistress, though when the adulterous wife is retained in the home.
Licentiousness is the only reason for divorce because it is diametrically opposed to the life of conjugial love and destroys it even to the point of extinction (see above, no. 255).
* “…whoever divorces his wife, excepting for licentiousness, and marries another, commits adultery….”
** “…whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of licentiousness, causes her to commit whoredom….”
1. The husband is afraid to go to court with his wife, to accuse her of adultery and thus to make the accusation public; for if eyewitness accounts or their equivalent failed to convict her, he would be enveloped in reproaches – covertly in gatherings of men, and openly in gatherings of women.
2. He fears as well skillful exonerations of herself on the part of his unfaithful wife, and also indulgences of her on the part of judges, and thus the disgracing of his name.
3. Besides these considerations, there are advantages in the domestic services she provides which persuade against separating her from the home. As for example: If they have little children, for whom even an unfaithful wife has a mother’s love. If they share and are bound together by joint duties which cannot be severed. If the wife enjoys the favor and protection of family and relatives, and there is hope of fortune from them. If he cherished the loving familiarities he had with her in the beginning. And if after becoming unfaithful she knows how to skillfully soothe her husband with amiable pleasantries and pretended civilities so as not to be charged.
There are other considerations, too, which, because they involve legitimate grounds for divorce, involve also legitimate grounds for taking a mistress. For a man’s reasons for retaining the wife in the home do not remove the ground for divorce when she has behaved licentiously. Who but a vile wretch can preserve the rights of the marriage bed and share his bed with a trollop? If it happens here and there, it is not a conclusive occurrence.
Impairments of the body, which 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. Cancerous sores.
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.)
Exhalations emanating from the stomach: Constantly offensive, foul-smelling, and rank eructations.
Emanating from the lungs: Foul and rancid expirations, issuing from tubercles, ulcerations or abscesses, or from the presence of corrupted blood or serum.
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. Epilepsy. Permanent disability due to strokes or apoplexies. Certain other chronic disorders. Intestinal obstruction and suffering (ileus). Hernial protrusion. Besides other diseases, which we learn from pathology.
Impairments of the mind which are just reasons for separation from the bed or from the home include: Psychosis. Organic psychosis. Insanity. Actual idiocy or imbecility. Amnesia. And other like things.
Reason sees without need of a judge that these instances are just grounds for taking a mistress, because they are just grounds for separation.
In men who prefer marriage to taking a mistress, and who resort to it for the aforesaid reasons, conjugial love is preserved because of the following considerations: Because taking a mistress in such a circumstance does not stand opposed to conjugial love. Because it does not entail a separation from that love. Because it constitutes only a veiling over of that love. And because this veil is removed from such men after death.
1. That taking a mistress in such a circumstance does not stand opposed to conjugial love. This follows from the points demonstrated above, that when taking a mistress in such a circumstance is done for legitimate, just and real weighty reasons, it is not forbidden (nos. 467-473).
[2] 2. That taking a mistress in such a circumstance does not entail a separation from conjugial love. It does not entail a separation from that love, for when legitimate, just or real weighty reasons intervene, persuade, and compel, conjugial love is not separated and the marriage with it, but it is only suspended; and love suspended, and not separated, remains in its vessel. The case here is similar to that of one who is engaged in an occupation he loves, and is kept from it by social functions, theater performances, or travels. He still does not lose his love for his occupation. The case is similar as well to that of one who loves fine wine. When he drinks an inferior kind, he still does not lose his avid taste for the fine kind.
[3] 3. That taking a mistress in such a circumstance constitutes only a veiling over of conjugial love. That is because the love in taking a mistress is natural, while the love in marriage is spiritual; and the natural love veils over the spiritual love when the latter is cut off. The man as a lover is not aware of this, because spiritual love is not felt in itself, but expresses itself through some natural love, which is experienced as delight in which there is a blessedness from heaven. But a natural love by itself is experienced simply as delight.
[4] 4. That this veil is removed after death. That is because the person from being natural then becomes spiritual, and instead of a material body possesses an essential one, in which natural delight from a spiritual love is felt in its height. I have heard that this is so from communication with some such men in the spiritual world, including kings there, who in the natural world had taken a mistress for real weighty reasons.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I heard a certain spirit, a young man newly come from the world, boasting of his licentious activities and acting as though he wished to have the acclaim of being a man more manly than others. Then amid the effronteries of his boasting, he blurted out also the following:
“What is more dismal than to imprison one’s love and to live alone with only one woman? And what is more delightful than to set one’s love free? Who is not wearied by the companionship of one, and enlivened by the attentions of many? Is anything sweeter than unrestricted freedom, variety, the deflowering of virgins, the deceiving of husbands, and licentious charades? Do not those things delight the inmost elements of the mind which are obtained by wiles, subterfuges and theft?”
[2] On hearing this, the people standing by said, “Do not speak so! You do not know where you are and in whose company you are. You have only recently arrived here. Under your feet is hell, and above your head is heaven. You are now in the world which is midway between those two and is called the world of spirits. All people come here and are gathered here who pass away out of the world, and they are explored with respect to their character and prepared, evil people for hell and good people for heaven. Perhaps you recall still from priests in the world that licentious and wanton men and women are cast into hell, and that the chastely married are taken up into heaven.”
The newcomer laughed at that, saying, “What is heaven, and what is hell? Is it not heaven wherever a person is free, and is he not free who is at liberty to make love to as many of the opposite sex as he pleases? And is it not hell wherever a person is enslaved, and is he not enslaved who must restrict himself to one?”
[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard what he was saying and stopped him from speaking, to keep him from going any further and speaking profanely of marriage. And the angel said to him, “Come up here, and I will show you by actual experience what heaven is and what hell is, and what the latter is like for the deliberately licentious.”
The angel then pointed out a path, by which the newcomer ascended. And after receiving the newcomer, he took him first to a garden paradise, containing fruit trees and flowers whose beauty, charm and fragrance filled their spirits with invigorating delights.
On seeing these sights, the newcomer marveled with great admiration; but he was then seeing with his external sight, of the kind he had had in the world when viewing like things there, and in that state of sight he was rational. However, when seeing with his internal sight, in which licentiousness predominated and occupied every particle of his thought, he was not rational. His external sight was closed up, therefore, and his internal sight opened. And when it was opened he said, “What is this I am seeing now? Are they not wisps of straw and dry sticks of wood? And what am I smelling now? Is it not a foul stench? Where now have the things of paradise gone?”
Whereupon the angel said, “They are close by and around you, but they are not visible to your internal sight, which is licentious; for licentiousness turns heavenly things into hellish ones and sees only their opposites. Every person has an inner mind and an outer mind, thus an internal sight and an external sight. In evil people the inner mind is insane and the outer one wise, while in good people the inner mind is wise and in consequence of it the outer one too; and the character of the mind determines how a person in the spiritual world sees objects.”
[4] After that, by a power given him, the angel closed up the newcomer’s internal sight and opened his external one; and he took him through some gates towards the central area of their residences, where the young man saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, with arcades adjoining them, and columns round about, covered and beset with stunning emblems and ornamentations.
When the young man saw these, he was overwhelmed with astonishment, and he said, “What am I seeing? I am seeing magnificent sights in the essence of their magnificence, and architecture in the essence of its art!”
But then the angel closed up his external sight again, and opened his internal one, which was evil because of its foully licentious character; and at that the young man cried out, saying, “What am I seeing now? Where am I? Where now have the palaces and magnificent sights gone? I am seeing ruins, rubble, and cavernous hollows!”
[5] He was, however, shortly restored to his external state and taken into one of the palaces; and he beheld the ornamentations of the doors, windows, walls and ceilings – especially of the implements, which were covered and beset with heavenly forms of gold and precious stones such as words cannot describe or any art portray; for they transcended the imagery of words and the conceptions of art.
Seeing these things, the young man cried out again, saying, “These are truly marvels, never seen by any eye before!”
But then as previously his external sight was closed up and his internal one opened; and on being asked what he saw now, he replied, “Nothing but walls of rushes here, of straw there, and of firebrands over there.”
[6] Again, however, he was brought into his external state of mind, and maidens were presented to him who were pictures of beauty, because they were images of heavenly affection; and these spoke to him in the sweet voice of their affection. At that, then, on seeing and hearing them, the young man’s expression changed, and he spontaneously slipped back into his internal qualities, which were licentious. And because these qualities cannot endure any element of heavenly love, and conversely cannot be endured by any heavenly love, they vanished on both sides – the maidens from the sight of the man, and the man from the sight of the maidens.
[7] After that the angel informed him of the reason for these changes in the state of his sight. “I perceive,” he said, “that in the world from which you come, you had a dual character, being one person in your inner qualities and another in your outer ones; and that in your outer qualities you were a law-abiding, moral and rational person, but in your inner qualities not law-abiding, not moral, and not rational, because you were licentious and an adulterer. When people of this character are permitted to ascend into heaven and are kept there in their outer qualities, they can see the heavenly objects around them; but when their inner qualities are laid open, instead of heavenly objects they see hellish ones.
[8] “However, you should know that the outer qualities in everyone here are gradually closed up and the inner ones laid open, and thus they are prepared for heaven or for hell. Furthermore, because the evil of licentiousness defiles the inner qualities of the mind more than any other evil, it is inevitable that you be carried down to the foul depravities of your love, depravities which exists in the hells, in caverns which stink of excrement.
“Who cannot know from reason that unchasteness and lasciviousness in the spiritual world is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing pollutes and defiles a person more and induces on him a hellish character?
“Take care, therefore, not to boast any further of your licentiousness, thinking that in this you are a man more manly than others. I predict to you that you will become impotent, even so that you scarcely know where your masculinity lies. Such is the fate that awaits those who boast of the prowess of their licentiousness.”
After hearing this the young man descended and went back to the world of spirits, and returning to his former companions, he spoke with them modestly and chastely – but yet not for long.
No one who judges of it only on the basis of outward appearances can know that there is any evil in adultery; for in outward appearances it bears a resemblance to marriage. When internal qualities are mentioned, and those superficial judges are told that external actions draw their goodness or evil from them, they say to themselves, “What are internal qualities? Who sees them? Is this not something that transcends the realm of anyone’s intelligence?”
Such people are of the same character as those who accept all affected good as genuine and sincere, and who estimate a person’s wisdom in accordance with the elegance of his speech. Or they are like those who esteem the man himself in accordance with the fineness of his clothing and the grandness of the carriage in which he rides, and not in accordance with his inner deportment, which has to do with his judgment arising from his affection for good. It is also comparable to judging of a tree’s fruit or any provender simply by its look and feel, and not considering its goodness by the way it tastes and what one knows about it. Thus do all do who are averse to discerning anything of a person’s internal qualities.
From this originates the madness of many today, that they do not see anything evil in adulterous affairs – indeed, that they put marriage and adultery together in the same bed, in other words, make them alike; and this simply because of their seeming similarity in outward appearances.
[2] I was convinced of the fact of this by the evidence of the following experience: Some angels once called together several hundred people from the European world, of those distinguished for their genius, learning and wisdom there; and they questioned them about the difference between marriage and adultery, asking them to consult the rational considerations of their intellect. After consulting then, all but ten replied that statutory law alone makes a distinction, and this for the sake of some beneficial end, an end which can indeed be defined, but yet be accommodated through judicial discretion. The angels next asked them whether they saw anything good in marriage or anything evil in adultery. They replied that they saw no rational evil or good. When asked whether they saw anything sinful in the latter, they said, “In what respect? Is not the act the same?”
The angels were stunned at these responses and exclaimed, “Oh, how extraordinary and how great the grossness of the age!”
When they heard that, the hundreds of the wise assembled turned around and guffawing said to each other, “Is this grossness? What possible wisdom is there to convince us that to make love to another’s wife is deserving of eternal damnation?”
[3] Adultery, however, is a spiritual evil, and therefore a moral evil and a civil evil, diametrically opposed to the wisdom of reason. The love in adultery also ascends from hell and descends back to it, while the love in marriage descends from heaven and ascends back to it. This we showed at the outset of this second part, in the chapter on the opposition of licentious love to conjugial love.*
But because all evils, like all goods, are allotted a breadth and a height, and because according to that breadth they have their kinds and according to that height their degrees, therefore in order that adulteries may be distinguished in respect to both dimensions, we will divide them first into their kinds and afterwards into their degrees. This we will do according to the following outline:
(1) There are three kinds of adultery: simple adultery, double adultery, and triple adultery.
(2) Simple adultery is the adultery of an unmarried man with the wife of another, or of an unmarried woman with the husband of another.
(3) Double adultery is the adultery of a married man with the wife of another, or vice versa.
(4) Triple adultery is adultery with close blood relatives.
(5) There are four degrees of adultery, which affect accordingly subsequent attributions of it, convictions, and, after death, imputations.
(6) Adulteries of the first degree are adulteries of ignorance, which are committed by people who are not yet able to or cannot consult the intellect and so prevent them.
(7) Adulteries committed by such people are mild.
(8) Adulteries of the second degree are adulteries of lust, which are committed by people who are indeed able to consult the intellect, but for reasons of circumstance at the moment cannot.
(9) Adulteries committed by such people are imputable to them according as their intellect afterwards sanctions them or does not sanction them.
(10) Adulteries of the third degree are adulteries of the reason, which are committed by people who intellectually persuade themselves that they are not sinful evils.
(11) Adulteries committed by such people are grave and are imputed to them in accordance with their persuasions.
(12) Adulteries of the fourth degree are adulteries of the will, which are committed by people who make them allowable and pleasurable, and not of sufficient consequence to merit consulting the intellect in regard to them.
(13) Adulteries committed by such people are the most grave and are imputed to them as purposeful evils, and they become settled in them as culpable offenses.
(14) Adulteries of the third and fourth degree are sinful evils according to the measure and nature of the intellect and will in them, whether they are committed in act or not.
(15) Purposeful adulteries arising from the will, and deliberate adulteries arising from a persuasion of the intellect, render a person natural, sensual and carnal.
(16) And this to the point that they finally cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion.
(17) Nevertheless, they still possess human rationality like others.
(18) Yet they use their rationality only when engaged in their outward lives, but abuse it when engaged in their inner ones.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* Nos. 423ff.
It may be seen from the revelations disclosed in the work, Heaven and Hell (published in London, in the year 1758), that He has distinguished each and every thing in the spiritual world into kinds, species and varieties, and that He has gathered all good qualities and truths into heaven, and all evil qualities and falsities into hell, and arranged the latter in diametric opposition to the former. He has also so distinguished and continues to distinguish goods and truths and evils and falsities among people, thus people themselves, as may be known from their lot after death, which for the good is heaven, and for the evil, hell.
Now because everything relating to good and everything relating to evil has been distinguished into kinds, species, and the like, therefore marriages are distinguished into these, too, and likewise their antitheses, which are adulteries.
I encountered certain spirits who, from practice in the life of the body, infested me with a peculiar skill, and this by a delicate and kind of undulating influx, such as is characteristic usually of upright spirits. But I perceived that they had in them a cunning and guile and the like, in order to captivate and deceive.
At length I spoke with one of them, who I was told had been the commander of an army when he lived in the world.** And because I perceived that there was something lascivious in the ideas of his thought, I spoke with him in spiritual speech using representations, which expresses the meanings of things fully and more in an instant.
He said that in the life of his body in the previous world he had regarded adulteries as nothing. But I was able to say to him that adulteries are unspeakable, even though they appear to people like him, from the delight that seizes them and from their consequent persuasion, that they are delightful, indeed, permissible. Moreover he could know this from the fact that marriages are the seedbed of the human race, and so also the seedbed of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore are not to be violated, but held sacred. He could know this also, I said – which he ought to know, being in the spiritual world and in a state of perception – from the fact that conjugial love descends from the Lord through heaven, and that from that love, as from a parent, stems mutual love, which is what heaven is founded on. So, too, he could know this from the fact that when adulterers simply come anywhere near heavenly societies, they perceive their own stench and therefore cast themselves down in the direction of hell. At least he might have known, I said, that to violate marriages is contrary to Divine laws, contrary to the civil laws of all countries, and contrary to the light of reason, and thus contrary to commonly accepted morality, because it violates both Divine and human order. And so on.
[2] But he replied that he had thought nothing like that in his former life. He wished to reason out whether it were so, but I told him that truth is not subject to lines of reasoning; for reasonings incline to delights of the flesh which oppose delights of the spirit, because the flesh does not know what the latter delights are like. Rather he ought first to consider the things I had said, because they were true. Or he should think in accordance with that familiar principle, which is very well known in the world, that no one ought to do to another what he would not want another to do to him. Consider, for example, if someone were to have seduced his wife in this way, a wife he loved (as is the case in the beginning of every marriage). If, while in a state of fury over it, he were to have spoken in accordance with that state, would he, too, not have then denounced adulteries? And being a man of intelligence, would he not more than others have then confirmed himself against them, even so as to condemn them to hell? Indeed, because he was the commander of an army and associated in it with men of action, in order not to be the subject of reproach, would he not have either killed the adulterer or cast the harlot out of his house?
* Repeated, with minor changes, from Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), no. 2733, and Heaven and Hell, no. 385. The incident was first recorded in Spiritual Experiences, no. 4405.
** This commander is identified in Spiritual Experiences, no. 4405, as Prince Eugene. In a note to his 1953 translation of this account, Alfred Acton I says that he was “Francois Eugene, Prince of Savoy (1663-1736), one of the most famous generals in the Austrian army,” and adds, “The conversation here recorded was held in the summer of 1750, when Swedenborg was in Aix-la-Chapelle.”
We said above (no. 480) that following the pledge and covenant, the conjugial love of one man with one wife unites their souls; that this union is the love itself in its origin; and that adultery closes it off and stops it up, like one who closes off and stops up the source and flow of a spring. It is clearly apparent that the souls of the two unite when love for the opposite sex is confined to one of the sex – as happens when a young woman has pledged herself wholly to a young man and the young man conversely has pledged himself wholly to the young woman – from the fact their two lives unite, consequently their souls, because these are their life in its beginnings. This union of souls is possible only in monogamous marriages or marriages of one man with one wife; but not in polygamous marriages or marriages of one man with more than one wife; because in the latter love is divided, in the former united.
Conjugial love in this, its highest seat, is spiritual, holy and pure, because the soul of every person from its origin is celestial; consequently it receives influx from the Lord directly; for it receives from Him a marriage of love and wisdom or good and truth, and this influx makes the person a human being and sets him apart from animals.
[2] From this union of souls, where it is in its spiritual holiness and purity, conjugial love flows down into the life of the entire body and fills it with blessed delights, so long as its course remains open, as is the case in people who from the Lord become spiritual.
Nothing else closes off and stops up this seat, source, or wellspring of conjugial love and its flow but adultery, as is apparent from the Lord’s words, that only on the ground of licentiousness is it lawful for one to divorce his wife and marry another (Matthew 19:4-9); and from this statement in the same passage, that whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery (verse 9).
When, therefore, this pure and holy wellspring is stopped up, as described above, it is, like a jewel in excrement or bread in vomit, encompassed by foul pollutions that are altogether opposed to the purity and sanctity of that spring which is conjugial love. From that opposition arises coldness to the marriage, and in the measure of that coldness the libidinous lasciviousness of licentious love, which spontaneously consumes itself. This is a sinful evil, because it covers over something holy and thus obstructs its course into the body, allowing something profane to take its place and open its course into the body, so that from being heavenly the person becomes hellish.
I have heard there that some married men have a lust to carry on licentiously with other women – some with undeflowered women or virgins; some with experienced women or harlots; some with married women or wives; some with such as are of noble birth; and some with such as are of humble birth. I have been assured that this is the case from the evidence of many from various countries in that world.
When I was once deliberating on the variety of these lusts, I inquired whether there are men who experience delight only with the wives of others, and none with unmarried women. Therefore, in order to show me that there are, a number of them from a certain country were brought to me and made to speak in accordance with their libidinous nature. They said that they had found and also continued to find their only pleasure and delight in committing whoredom with the wives of others. Moreover, they said they procure for themselves beautiful ones and pay them for their services at a great price, according to their means; for the most part agreeing on the price with the woman alone.
I asked why they did not procure for themselves the services of unmarried women.
They said that that was, for them, too commonplace, being in itself nothing special and so empty of delight.
I asked further whether these wives afterwards went back to their husbands and continued to live with them.
They replied that either they did not or they did so coldly, because they had become whores.
[2] After that I inquired of them seriously whether they had ever considered, or whether they considered now, that what they did was double adultery, because they did it while being themselves married, and that such adultery devastates a person of every spiritual good.
In response to this, however, most of those who were there laughed and said, “What is spiritual good?”
Nevertheless I persisted, saying, “What is more abhorrent than to commingle one’s own soul with the soul of the husband in his wife? Do you not know that a man’s soul is present in his seed or sperm?”
At this they turned away and muttered, “What harm is there in that?”
Finally I said, “Even though you do not fear Divine laws, are you not afraid of the civil laws?”
They replied that they were not – “only of some of the clergy of the church,” they said, “but in their presence we conceal what we are doing; and if we cannot, we ingratiate ourselves with them.”
I afterwards saw these men divided into groups and some of the groups cast into hell.
Such adulteries are three times more grave than the foregoing two kinds for reasons that are internal and external. The internal reasons derive from the correspondence of such adulteries with a violation of the spiritual marriage, which is that of the Lord and the church and so then of goodness and truth. The external reasons, on the other hand, exist as matters of protection, to keep a person from becoming an animal. However, we do not have the space here to proceed to a discovery of the reasons.
* These include: father, mother, stepmother, sister, stepsister, granddaughter, half sister, paternal or maternal aunt, uncle, uncle’s wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, stepdaughter, mother-in-law, stepgranddaughter.
That circumstances and contingent factors vary every case is something people know. However, events are still regarded in one way by a person on the basis of his rational sight, in another way by a judge on the basis of the law, and in another way by the Lord on the basis of the state of the person’s mind. Therefore we distinguish between attributions, convictions, and, after death, imputations. For attributions are determined by a person in accordance with his rational sight; convictions by a judge in accordance with the law; and imputations by the Lord in accordance with the person’s state of mind.
These three judgments are very different in nature, as can be seen without need for explanation. For a person may, from a rational evaluation in accordance with the circumstances and contingent factors, exonerate one whom a judge while sitting in judgment cannot on the basis of the law exonerate; and a judge, too, may exonerate one who after death is condemned. The reason for the latter is that a judge determines his verdict in accordance with a person’s deeds, whereas everyone is judged after death in accordance with the intentions of his will and consequent intellect, and in accordance with the persuasions of his intellect and consequent will. Neither of these does a judge see. Yet each judgment is nevertheless just, the one looking to the good of civil society, the other to the good of heavenly society.
But to illustrate by examples: Suppose, for instance, that adultery is committed by an adolescent boy who does not yet know that adultery is a greater evil than fornication. Suppose that it is committed by a person of extreme simplicity. Suppose that it is committed by someone who as a result of illness has lost his power of judgment; or by someone who experiences periods of delirium, as happens with some, and who is then in the same state as people actually deranged. Or again, suppose that it is committed in a state of raving drunkenness; and so on. It is evident that the inward self or mind is then not present in the outward one, scarcely differently from the way it is not in an irrational person.
The adulteries of such people are attributed to them by a rational person in accordance with the circumstances. Yet the same person, sitting as judge, still convicts and punishes the doer in accordance with the law; while after death their adulteries are imputed to them in accordance with the presence, character and capability of understanding present in their will.
Adulteries of this degree are mild, however, the first time they are committed. And they also remain mild to the extent in the subsequent course of his or her life the adulterer or adulteress refrains from them for the reason that they are evils against God, or are evils against the neighbor, or because they are evils contrary to the good of civil society, and in consequence of one or the other of these, because they are evils contrary to reason. But on the other hand, adulteries of this degree are also reckoned among the more grave ones if they do not refrain from them for one of the aforementioned reasons. Thus the case is in accordance with the Divine law, in Ezekiel 18:21,22,24,* and elsewhere.
Still, such adulteries cannot by man be excused or condemned or attributed and judged as mild or grave on these grounds, because they are not visible to his sight; indeed, neither are they within the scope of his judgment. What we mean, therefore, is that they are so reckoned and imputed after death.
* “But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live…. But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.”
[2] But let examples serve to illustrate; as for instance: If a wanton wife employs her wiles to captivate a man’s heart, enticing him into her bedroom and setting him on fire until he loses his judgment; and the more so if she also then threatens him with disgrace if he does not comply. So, too, if some wanton wife is skilled in sorcery and witchcraft, or uses potions to kindle a man, so that the heat of the flesh deprives his intellect of its freedom of reason. Likewise if a man uses sweet enticements to seduce another’s wife, until her will is so on fire that she is unable any longer to resist. To which may be added other, similar examples.
Reason assents and concedes that these and like circumstances lessen the gravity of adultery and incline in a milder direction attributions of blame for it on the part of the seduced man or woman.
The imputing of adultery of this degree is considered in the discussion that follows next.
The contrary is the case if they are not afterwards sanctioned. That is because evils or adulteries which are committed blindly without the assent of the intellect are prompted by a lust of the body, and are much like instinctive actions such as we find in the case of animals. In the human being the intellect is indeed present when they are committed, but having a passive or lifeless force, not an active or operative one.
It follows of itself from this that such actions are not imputed except in the measure that they are afterwards sanctioned or not sanctioned. By imputation we mean here an indictment and judgment after death, which proceeds in accordance with the state of the person’s spirit. We do not mean an indictment by man before a judge. The latter does not proceed in accordance with the state of the person’s spirit, but in accordance with that of his body in the deed. If the two proceedings were not to differ, after death those people would be exonerated who are exonerated in the world, and those would be condemned who are condemned in the world; and in that case the latter would be without any hope of salvation.
Who, however, does not know that good and truth are two distinct things, as are love and wisdom? And whenever he is possessed of rational light, who cannot therefore conclude that there are two elements in man which separately receive and incorporate these into them; and that one is the will and the other the intellect, for the reason that what the will receives and reproduces is referred to in terms of good, and what the intellect receives is referred to in terms of truth? For what the will loves and does is called good, and what the intellect perceives and thinks is called truth.
[2] Now the marriage between good and truth was discussed in the first part of this work, and we presented there a number of points having to do with the will and intellect and the various attributes and characteristics of each – points which I am inclined to suppose even those people understand who have not had any distinct thought concerning the intellect and will; for human reason is such that it understands truths in the light of truth, even if it has not discerned them before. So, then, to make the differences between the intellect and will still more clearly perceptible, I will cite some of these points here, in order that it may be known what adulteries of the reason or intellect are, and afterward what adulteries of the will are. Let the following serve to provide a concept of them:
[3] 1. The will by itself accomplishes nothing on its own, but whatever it does it does through the intellect.
2. Conversely, too, the intellect by itself accomplishes nothing on its own, but whatever it does it does from the will.
3. The will flows into the intellect, and not the intellect into the will; but the intellect makes known what is good and what is evil and advises the will, in order that it may choose between the two and do that which it prefers.
4. After that a twofold conjunction of the two takes place, one in which the will operates inwardly and the intellect outwardly, the other in which the intellect operates inwardly and the will outwardly.
The last is what distinguishes adulteries of the reason, which we are considering here, from adulteries of the will, which we take up next.
There is a distinction between them, because one is more grave than the other. For adultery of the reason is not as grave as adultery of the will. That is because in adultery of the reason, the intellect operates inwardly and the will outwardly; but in adultery of the will, the will operates inwardly and the intellect outwardly, and the will is the person himself, while the intellect is the person only as an extension of the will. Whatever operates inwardly also predominates over that which operates outwardly.
Persuasions are formed by reasonings, which the mind seizes on either from its upper realm or from its lower one. If it does so from its upper realm, which communicates with heaven, it defends marriages and condemns adulteries. But if it does so from its lower realm, which communicates with the world, it defends adulteries and denigrates marriages.
It is possible for everyone to defend evil as easily as good, likewise falsity as easily as truth. The defending of evil is also perceived as more pleasing than the defending of good, and the affirmation of falsity appears as more enlightened than the affirmation of truth. That is because any defense of evil and falsity draws its reasonings from the pleasures, gratifications, appearances and fallacies of the bodily senses, whereas the defense of good and truth draws its reasons from a realm above the sensual elements of the body.
Now, because evils and falsities can be defended just as easily as goods and truths, and because the intellect in defending them draws the will over to its side, and the will together with the intellect forms the mind, it follows that the form of the human mind has its character in accordance with its persuasions, being turned toward heaven if its persuasions are in support of marriages, but turned toward hell if they are in support of adulteries. Whatever character the form of a person’s mind has, moreover, such also is the character of his spirit; consequently, such is the character of the person.
It follows from this, now, that adulteries of this degree are imputed after death in accordance with a person’s persuasions.
These two distinguishing characteristics are not apparent to anyone in the natural world, but they are clearly apparent to angels in the spiritual world. All people in that world are distinguished in general according as their evils spring originally from the will or from the intellect and are so received and adopted. They are also separated accordingly in hell. Those in hell who are evil because of their intellect dwell toward the front and are called satanic spirits, while those who are evil because of their will dwell behind and are called devils. It is because of this universal distinction that the terms satan and devil are used in the Word.
In those evil spirits – including adulterers – who are called satanic spirits, the intellect plays the primary role, whereas in those who are called devils, the will plays the primary role.
It is impossible, however, to present these distinguishing characteristics sufficiently for the understanding to see them, unless the distinctive characteristics of the will and the intellect are first made known, and unless one describes the mind’s development from the will by means of the intellect, and its development from the intellect by means of the will. A concept of these has to enlighten the sight before the aforementioned distinguishing characteristics are visible to the reason; but that would take another page.
That which springs from the very essence of a person’s life, thus which springs from his will or love, is in the main called purpose; while that which springs from the outward expression of his life, thus from the intellect and its thought, is called intention. Culpability is also in the main assigned to the will. So people say that the culpability of evil in everyone is due to heredity, while the evil itself is due to the man.
It is because of this that these adulteries of the fourth degree are imputed as purposeful evils and become settled in the doers as culpable offenses.
It is clearly apparent from this that adulteries committed in act are grave according to the measure and nature of the intellect and will in them. That these same evils are similarly grave even if not committed in act follows from these words of the Lord:
…it was said by those of old, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that (if anyone) looks at (another’s) woman so as to lust for her, (he) has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27,28)
To commit adultery in the heart is to do so in the will.
[2] There are many considerations which induce an adulterer to refrain from being an adulterer in act, while yet remaining so in will and intellect. For there are some who refrain from adulterous relationships as regards the act 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; so also because they are afraid of being beaten by the servants; 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, and fear being disgraced on account of it.
If anyone refrains from adulteries in act for these and like reasons, and yet sanctions them in will and intellect, he is still an adulterer. For he nevertheless believes that they are not sins, and in his spirit makes them not unlawful in the eyes of God; and thus he commits them in spirit, even if he does not in body before the world. Therefore after death, when he becomes a spirit, he speaks openly in favor of them.
[2] The outcome is different if he does not live in accordance with concepts of good and truth. In that case the love of his will remains natural, and his understanding becomes only intermittently spiritual. For it periodically rises like an eagle and looks down on what below has to do with his love, and when it sees it, it flies down to it and unites itself with it. Consequently, if lusts of the flesh are connected with his love, it descends from its height to these and in union with them entertains itself with their delights – only to rise on high again, motivated by a desire for acclaim in order to be deemed wise; and doing this in cycles intermittently, in the manner just described.
[3] Adulterers of the third and fourth degree are those who have made themselves adulterers from a purpose of the will or from a persuasion of the intellect; and they are utterly natural and become progressively sensual and carnal for the reason that they have immersed the love of their will and together with it then their intellect in the unclean perversions of licentious love, and taken delight in them, as unclean birds and beasts do in putrid and fecal matters as though they were exquisite and desirable treats. For vaporous exhalations rising up from the flesh in them fill the habitation of the mind with their impurities and cause the will not to perceive anything more exquisite and desirable. (Such people after death become carnal spirits, and it is they from whom spring the unclean things of hell and in the church spoken of above in nos. 430, 431.)
Adulteries of the sort named above lead people into these degenerate degrees – one into this degree, another into that degree – each in accordance with the chosen pleasure that forms his character.
Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the reason that the love in marriage and the love in adultery are opposed to each other in the way that the marriage of good and truth is opposed to the connubial alliance of evil and falsity (nos. 427, 428); and the marriage of good and truth is the church, while the connubial alliance of evil and falsity is anti-church.
Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the reason that the love in marriage and the love in adultery are opposed to each other in the way that heaven and hell are (no. 429); and in heaven one finds a love for anything connected with the church, while in hell one finds a hatred toward anything connected with the church.
[2] Such adulterers cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion for the further reason that their delights arise from the flesh and are delights of the flesh even in the spirit (nos. 440, 441); and the flesh is against the spirit, which is to say, against the spiritual things of the church. That, too, is why we call the delights of licentious love pleasures of insanity.
If you wish to have this demonstrated, go, please, to those whom you know to be such adulterers and inquire of them privately what they think in regard to God, the church and eternal life, and you will hear.
The real reason for it is that, as conjugial love opens the inner faculties of the mind and so elevates them above the sensual elements of the body even into the light and warmth of heaven, so conversely the love in adultery closes the inner faculties of the mind and impels the mind itself in respect to its will down into the body, even into all the appetites of its flesh; and the deeper it impels it, the more it draws it away and distances it from heaven.
Still, without the ability to elevate his intellect above the love of his will, a person would not be human but an animal, since an animal does not possess that ability. Consequently neither could he make choices and by choice do that which is good and useful, and thus he could not be reformed and led to heaven and live to eternity.
Even though they are merely natural, sensual and carnal, therefore, so it is that purposeful and deliberate adulterers still possess the gift of understanding or rationality like others. However, when they are caught up in the lust of adultery and in that state think and speak in regard to it, they lose that rationality. The reason is that the flesh then prevails over the spirit and not the spirit over the flesh.
Nevertheless, it should be known that such people after death become stupid. Not that the ability to think wisely is taken from them, but that they do not want to think wisely, since wisdom is not to their liking.
Investigate the matter for yourself, if you wish. Take a person of this character, as, for example, some member of the Jesuit order as it is called, and have him speak in the company of others or teach in a church about God, the sanctities of the church, and heaven and hell, and you will hear him to be a more rational champion of them than anyone else. He may even perhaps move you to laments and tears for your salvation. But take him into your home, praise him over the usual orders, call him the father of wisdom, and make yourself his friend until he opens his heart, and you will hear what pronouncements he will have to make then regarding God, the sanctities of the church, and heaven and hell, namely, that they are fantasies and delusions, and thus inventions to ensnare souls, by which they captivate and bind the great and small, rich and poor, and hold them under the yoke of their dominion.
Let this suffice to illustrate what we mean in saying that natural people, even including carnal ones, possess human rationality like others, yet that they use it only when engaged in their outward lives, but abuse it when engaged in their inner ones.
It is in consequence of this that one ought not to base his judgment of a person on the wisdom of his lips alone, but on the wisdom of his life too.
– – – – – – – – – – –
I once heard in the world of spirits a great tumult. Thousands of spirits had gathered and were crying out, “Punish them! Punish them!”
I drew nearer and asked, “What is going on?”
Leaving that great throng, one of them said to me that they were in a white-hot rage at three priests who were going about and everywhere preaching against adulterers, saying that adulterers lack any acknowledgment of God, and that heaven was closed to them and hell opened. Also that in hell they are unclean devils, because they appear at a distance there like pigs rolling around in piles of excrement, and that the angels in heaven abhor them.
I inquired where those priests were and why there was such an outcry on that account.
He replied that the three priests were in their midst, surrounded by bodyguards, and that the gathering consisted of people who believe that adulteries are not sins and who maintain that adulterers have an acknowledgment of God just as much as those who are faithful to their wives. “They are all from the Christian world,” he said, “and when they were once visited by angels to see how many among them believed that adulteries were sins, not a hundred in a thousand were found who did.”
Moreover he told me that the remaining nine hundred speak in regard to adulteries as follows:
[2] “Who does not know that the delight in adultery far surpasses the delight of marriage? That adulterers experience a perpetual state of heat and so possess a more vigorous, energetic and active life than those who live with just one woman? And that, conversely, love with one’s married partner grows cold, and this sometimes to such a degree that at last scarcely a word of conversation and companionship with her has any vitality? It is different with loose women. The gradual deadening of life with a wife owing to a failure of ability is refreshed and invigorated by licentious affairs. Is not something that refreshes and invigorates better than something that deadens?
“What is marriage but legalized licentiousness? Who knows any difference between them? Can love be compelled? Yet love with a wife is compelled by covenant and laws. Is love with a partner not a sexual love? Yet this is so universal that it exists also in birds and animals. What is conjugial love but a love for the opposite sex? Yet love for the opposite sex is set free when enjoyed with every woman.
“There are civil laws against adultery because legislators have believed that it accorded with the public good, and yet the legislators themselves and judges sometimes commit adultery, and then say to each other, ‘Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.’* Only the simple and religious believe that adulteries are sins. Not so the intelligent, who, like us, view them in the light of nature.
[3] “Are children not born of adulteries in the same way as in marriages? Are illegitimate offspring not just as fit and serviceable for offices and ministries as legitimate ones? And besides, children are thus provided for families that would be otherwise childless. Is this not beneficial rather than harmful?
“What harm does it do a wife if she admits a number of rivals? And what harm does it do her husband? The idea that the husband is disgraced is a frivolous opinion springing from the imagination.
“The decree that adultery is contrary to the laws and statutes of the church comes from the ecclesiastical order in order to gain power. But what does theology and spirituality have to do with merely physical and fleshly delight? Are there not clergymen and monks who are adulterers? Are they unable on that account to acknowledge and worship God? Why then do these three priests preach that adulterers are without any acknowledgment of God? We will not tolerate such blasphemies. Therefore let them be judged and punished.”
[4] After that I saw them summon judges, and they asked the judges to impose penalties on the priests.
But the judges said, “This does not fall within our province, for it has to do with acknowledgment of God and sin and thus with salvation and damnation. Judgment with respect to these has to come from heaven.
“However, we will advise you as to how you can ascertain whether these three priests have been preaching the truth. There are three places known to us judges where matters of this sort are explored and revealed in a singular manner. One is a place in which a path to heaven lies open to all, but where, when they arrive in heaven, they themselves perceive what their character is in respect to their acknowledgment of God. The second is a place where a path lies open to heaven also, but which no one can enter unless he has heaven in him. And the third is a place where there is a path leading to hell, which those who love hellish things enter of their own accord, because they are drawn by their delight.
“We judges send to those places all who demand judgment from us in cases dealing with heaven and hell.”
[5] Upon hearing this, the people gathered said, “Let us go to those places.”
So they went to the first, where a path to heaven lies open to all; and as they were going, suddenly they were enveloped in darkness, so that some of them lighted torches and held them before them.
The judges, who had accompanied them, said, “This happens to all who go to the first place, but as they draw near, the blaze of their torches becomes fainter, and on their reaching the place itself is extinguished, because of the light of heaven flowing in – a sign that they have arrived. The reason for this phenomenon is that heaven is first closed to them and then opened.”
So they came to that place, and as the torches went out of themselves, they saw a sloping path leading upward to heaven. The people who were in a white-hot rage at the priests entered it. Among the first were those who were purposeful adulterers, behind them those who were deliberate adulterers. And as they ascended the first began to cry out, “Follow us,” and those behind cried, “Hurry,” so as to urge them on.
[6] A short time later, after they were all inside a heavenly society, a gulf appeared between them and the angels, and the light of heaven flowing over the gulf into their eyes opened the interior elements of their minds, so that they were compelled to speak as they inwardly thought. Whereupon the angels then inquired of them whether they acknowledged the existence of God.
The first group, those who were adulterers from a purpose of the will, replied, “What is God?” And looking at each other they said, “Have any of you seen Him?”
The second group, those who were adulterers from a persuasion of the intellect, said, “Is not everything attributable to nature? What exists above it but the sun?”
At that the angels then said to them, “Depart from us. You yourselves now see that you lack any acknowledgment of God. When you descend, the interior elements of your minds will be closed and the outer ones opened, and after that you can speak contrary to your inner thoughts and say that God exists. Be certain of this, that as soon as a person becomes an actual adulterer, heaven is closed to him, and when it is closed, he does not acknowledge God. Hear the reason: From adulteries springs all the uncleanness of hell, and this stinks in heaven like the putrid filth of the streets**.”
Hearing this, the people turned and descended by three paths. And when they were below, the first and second groups conferred with each other and said, “The priests won there; but we know that we can speak of God just as well as they, and when we say that He exists, do we not acknowledge Him? These inner and outer elements of our minds that the angels told us about are fictions.
“But let us go to the second place described by the judges, where a path lies open to heaven for those who have heaven in them, thus for those who are destined for heaven.”
[7] So they went, and as they approached, from that heaven went out the cry, “Close the gates! There are adulterers in the vicinity!”
Suddenly then the gates were closed, and guards with staffs in their hands drove them away. And they took from them the three priests in their keeping, against whom they had raised such a tumult, and conducted them into their heaven. The moment the gate was opened for the priests, moreover, immediately there wafted over the insurgents the delight of marriage, which because of its chastity and purity almost suffocated them.
For fear of fainting from loss of breath, therefore, they hastened to the third place that the judges had told them of, where they had said there was a path leading to hell; and wafting out from there then was the delight of adultery, which so revived those who were purposeful and deliberate adulterers that they almost danced as they descended; and on descending they immersed themselves like pigs there in unclean dirt and filth.
* Quoting John 8:7.
** Which in Swedenborg’s day included garbage thrown out of windows and the droppings of horses.
501. THE LUST TO DEFLOWER
The lusts described in the following four chapters not only are lusts of adultery, but they are still more grave, since they do not arise except in consequence of adulteries, being embraced after adulteries become tiresome. So, for example, the lust to deflower, which we consider first, which cannot possibly arise in anyone before then. The same is true of the lust for variety, the lust to rape, and the lust to seduce states of innocence, which we consider in the chapters that follow next.
We call these lusts, because the degree and nature of the lust for them determines the degree and nature of one’s embracement of them.
With respect to the lust to deflower specifically, in order to impart a clear conviction that it is wicked, its wickedness will be made manifest from the following considerations in turn:
(1) What the state of a virgin or untouched woman is before marriage and after marriage.
(2) Virginity is the crown of her chastity and a token of conjugial love.
(3) Defloration without intention of marriage is the villainous act of a robber.
(4) Those who persuade themselves that the lust to deflower is not a sinful evil, after death suffer a grievous fate.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
They said that when they came into a marriageable state, from seeing married partners they began to long for married life, but only in order to have the name of wives and keep company with one man in a friendly and trusting association, and to be freed, too, from their condition of obedience at home and become independent. They also said that they thought of marriage only because of the bliss of the friendship and mutual confidence they shared with a male companion, and not at all because of the delight of any passion.
[2] After the wedding, however, their virginal state, they said, was changed into a new one, of which they had had no knowledge before. And they said that this new state was one in which all the vital elements of their body, from the first to the last of them, swelled to receive their husband’s gifts and unite these to their life, that they might thus become his lover and wife. Moreover this state commenced, they said, from the moment of defloration, and after that the flame of their love burned for their husband alone, and they felt the delights of that swelling as the delights of heaven. So, too, because they were introduced into this state by their husband, and because it emanated from him and was thus his state in them, they could not possibly help but love him alone.
[3] It is evident from this what the state of virgins is before marriage and after marriage in heaven. A like state exists also in virgins and wives on earth who are married at the earliest opportunity, as may not be unknown. What virgin can have knowledge of this new state before she is in it? Inquire and you will hear. It is different with those who before marriage encounter stimulation from learning about it.
We call virginity a token of conjugial love as well, because it is a part of the covenant, a covenant whose end is that love may unite them into one person or one flesh.
Men themselves, too, regard the virginity of the bride before their wedding as the crown of her chastity and a token of conjugial love, and look upon it as the very morsel from which the delights of that love are to commence and endure.
It follows from these observations and those of the preceding discussion that after the maidenhead has been breached and her virginity tasted, a maiden becomes a wife, and if not a wife, a trollop. For the new state into which she is then initiated is a state of love for her man, and if it is not one of love for her man, it is a state of lust.
To these practices some add also the following enormity, that by various artifices they entice maidens before their wedding or right after their wedding to offer to them the first gifts of their marriage, thus foully defiling the marriage as well.
I have heard, too, that when that heat together with its ability wanes, they boast of the number of virgins they have had, as though over so many fleeces like the golden one stolen by Jason.
[2] This villainy, or debauchery, once commenced at an age of vigor and afterwards defended in boasts, remains deeply implanted and is thus entrenched after death.
The nature of the villainy is apparent from observations made above, that virginity is the crown of a woman’s chastity, a token of conjugial love to come, and that a maiden commits her soul and life to the man to whom she yields it. The friendship of a marriage and its accompanying trust are also founded on it. In addition, too, after this portal of conjugial love has been breached, a woman deflowered by villains such as these loses her sense of shame and becomes a trollop, for which as well that thief is responsible.
[3] If, after these indulgences of sexual lust and profane desecrations of chastity have come to an end, these robbers themselves turn their mind to marriage, they mentally contemplate only the virginity of their bride to be; and after they have tasted it, they loathe the marriage bed and chamber, indeed the entire female sex as well, all except young girls.
Accordingly, because such men are violators of marriage and despisers of the feminine sex, and so are spiritual bandits, it is apparent that a Divine retribution pursues them.
They are thus propelled into their lusts in order that it may be seen to what degree they had been caught up in them; and this to the end that, if it was to a minor degree, after having been propelled into them they may be delivered from them and filled with shame.
[2] However, those who had been caught up in this malevolent lust to the point that they felt its delight as exquisite, and who boasted about their thefts as over rich spoils, do not allow themselves to be withdrawn from them.
Therefore they are let go to do as they please, and they immediately wander about then, looking for brothels, which they also enter when these are pointed out to them (the brothels being situated on the peripheries of hell). But when they encounter only prostitutes there, they leave and ask where they may find virgins.
At that point they are then taken to harlots who are able by mirage to assume exceptional beauty and a rosy girlish charm and to pass themselves off as virgins, for whom they conceive a passionate ardor like that which they had felt in the world. They come to an arrangement with these women, therefore; but when they are about to consummate the arrangement, the mirage assumed from heaven is removed and the alleged virgins are seen in their ugliness, monstrous and dark. Yet they are compelled to remain with them for a while. Harlots of this sort are called sirens.
[3] After that, if these men do not allow themselves to be withdrawn from that insane lust of theirs by such beguilements, they are cast down into a hell which is located on the border between the south and west beneath the hell of harlots more cunning still, and there they are associated with their like.
I have also been granted to see them in that hell, and I was told that many of them there come from noble stock and the wealthier classes. Yet because they had been of the character they were in the world, all memory of their lineage and the standing they had because of their wealth is taken away, and they have instilled in them the persuasion that they were lowly bond servants and so unworthy of any respect.
[4] To each other, indeed, they appear as human, but to others who are permitted to look into that hell they appear as apes, having a cruel face instead of a gentle one, and a menacing expression instead of a good-humored one. They go about bowed at the waist and thus bent over, with the upper part of their body hanging forward as though they are about to fall. And they smell. They loathe the opposite sex, and turn away from any they see, for they have no desire.
That is how they appear at close range, but at a distance they look like pet dogs or little dogs kept for amusement, and something like the sound of barking is also heard in the intonations of their speech.
By the lust for variety that we take up here, we do not mean the lust to fornicate which we considered in its own chapter.* Even though the latter is usually promiscuous and indiscriminate, still it does not lead to a lust for variety except when it becomes excessive and the fornicator begins to take account of the number and to lustfully boast of it. Attention to this introduces the lust for variety. But what its character is in its progress cannot be clearly perceived unless it is presented in some order, which we will do as follows:
(1) By a lust for variety we mean a lust to fornicate that has become utterly dissolute.
(2) This lust involves a love for the opposite sex and at the same time a loathing for it.
(3) This lust totally annihilates any conjugial love in it.
(4) The lot of these people after death is a miserable one, since the inmost element of life is missing in them.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* See nos. 444[r]ff.
This lust increases as it progresses in them until they lust after all the women of the world and wish to have troops of them and a new one every day.
Since this lust breaks out of the confines of the normal love for the opposite sex implanted in every person, and altogether those of a love for one of the sex which is conjugial love, and casts itself into the outer regions of the heart, as a delight of love separated from those other loves and yet stemming from them, it becomes seated therefore in the outer coverings of the skin, and this so firmly that after its powers wane, it remains in the sense of touch.
Men of this character think nothing of adulterous affairs. Consequently they think of the entire female sex as a collective harlot and of marriage as collective harlotry. Thus they mix immorality with morality and as a result of the mixture become insane.
It is apparent from this what we mean here by the lust for variety, namely, that it is a lust to fornicate that has become utterly dissolute.
We can illustrate the fact that this lust involves a love for the opposite sex and at the same time a loathing for it in the following way. Imagine such men having a group of the women they have tasted to their left, and a group of women they have not tasted to their right. Would they not look upon the latter with love, and upon the first with loathing? And yet each group would be composed of the opposite sex.
It can be seen from this that this lust is deadly to conjugial love, and because conjugial love forms the inmost element of life in a person, that it is deadly to his life. It can also be seen that in consequence of its progressive thwartings and closings of the interior elements of the mind, this lust at last becomes one of the skin and so merely appetitive – yet with the faculty of understanding or rationality remaining.
After they have spent a period of time in the outward appearances of their lives, in which they speak rationally and behave civilly, they are propelled into their inner qualities, and so into the same lust and its delights, and into the same degree of it, in which they had been in the world. For everyone is introduced after death into the same state of life that he had adopted for himself, in order that he may be withdrawn from it, since no one can be withdrawn from his evil unless he has first been brought into it. Otherwise the evil would conceal itself and pollute the interior elements of the mind, and like a pestilence spread, and eventually break through its restraints and destroy the outward elements which are those of the body.
To accomplish this purpose, brothels are opened to them, which are on the periphery of hell, where they find harlots with whom they are given an opportunity to exercise their lusts with variety. But they are permitted to do this with only one a day, and are forbidden under threat of penalty from being with more than one on the same day.
[2] After that, when they have been examined and found to have that lust so ingrained in them that they cannot be withdrawn from it, they are conveyed to a particular place which is just above the hell reserved for them. They then appear to themselves as though to fall into a state of unconsciousness, and to others as though to sink down backwards with upturned face; and the ground actually opens under their backs and swallows them, and they sink down to their like. Thus they are gathered to their own.
It has been granted me to see them there and also to speak with them. To each other they appear as human, an appearance accorded them to keep them from terrifying their companions. However, at some distance they appear to have a white face, consisting, seemingly, only of skin, and this because they have no spiritual life in them, which in everyone depends on the conjugial inclination implanted in him.
[3] Their speech is dry, arid, and melancholy. When they are hungry, they lament, and their laments have a peculiar moaning sound. Their garments are tattered, and they wear their breeches drawn up over the belly around the chest because they do not have any loins. The ankles of their feet commence instead from the area just below the belly. The reason is that the loins in human beings correspond to conjugial love, and this is missing in them.
They told me that they loathe the opposite sex in consequence of their having become impotent.
Nevertheless, they can still reason with each other in regard to various matters, as though from rationality; but because they are only skin-deep in their thinking, they reason from misconceptions of the senses.
That hell is in the western zone towards the north.
These same people, however, from afar do not appear as human, nor as monsters, but as bits of frozen gelatin.
Still, it should be known that this is what becomes of those who have imbibed that lust to the degree that they have destroyed the human, conjugial inclination in them and annihilated it.
By the lust to rape we do not mean the lust to deflower. The lust to deflower is a violation of virgins’ virginity, but not of the virgins themselves when it is done with their consent. In contrast, the lust to rape which we take up here recedes in the face of consent and is intensified by refusal. Moreover it is an impulsion to violate any women whatever who absolutely refuse and vehemently resist, whether they are virgins, widows or wives. Such men are like highwaymen and pirates who take delight in goods seized and plundered and not in ones given and justly acquired. They are also like malefactors who pant after things unlawful and forbidden and spurn those which are lawful and allowed.
These violators of women utterly dislike consent and are inflamed by resistance; and if they observe that the resistance is not an internal one, the heat of their lust is, like a fire doused with water, immediately extinguished.
People know that some wives do not automatically submit themselves to their husbands’ determinations in regard to the outmost expressions of love, but that they are led by their prudence to put up a show of resistance, as though to acts of violation, in order to expel from their husbands any coldness arising from its ordinariness in consequence of its being continually allowed, and also any coldness arising from a lascivious idea of them as women.
These shows of resistance, however, even though they arouse, still do not cause this lust but are only introductory to it. The cause of the lust comes after conjugial love and likewise licentious love have become, through exercises of them, stale, when in order to be reinvigorated the men wish to be set on fire by absolute efforts at resistance.
This lust thus begun, afterwards grows, and as it grows, it disdains and bursts through all the limits of a love for the opposite sex and exiles itself from them, so that from being a lascivious, carnal and fleshly love it becomes a cartilaginous and bony one; and then, from the periostea, which possess an acute sensibility, it becomes acute.
Still, however, this lust is rare, because it occurs only in those who have entered into marriage and afterward engaged in licentious affairs until these have become stale.
In addition to this natural cause, this lust has also a spiritual cause, which we will say something about later on.
Of their own accord these violators of women separate themselves from men who have a restricted love for the opposite sex and altogether from those who possess conjugial love, thus separating themselves from heaven.
After that they are sent off to very cunning harlots who are able not only by persuasion but also by a perfectly acted imitation to carry and portray themselves as though they were the essences of chastity. These harlots accurately perceive which of them are caught up in this lust. In their presence they talk about chastity and its preciousness. Then, when a violator of women approaches and touches them, they blaze up in anger and flee as though in terror to a room where they have a couch and bed, and lightly closing the door behind them, lie down. Thereupon they use their skill to inspire in the violator an unbridled desire to break open the door, rush in and attack them. When he does so, rising up she begins to fight with the violator using her hands and fingernails, lacerating his face, tearing apart his clothes, and with a furious voice crying out to her fellow harlots as though to her servants for help; in the meantime opening the window and shouting “Thief! Robber! Murderer!” Then when the violator is about to rape her, she wails and weeps; and after the rape she lies prostrate, bawling and crying “Villainy!” She also at that point threatens him in a stern voice that unless he atones for the rape by paying her a large compensation, she will bring about his ruin.
When they are engaged in this theatrical sex play, they appear from a distance like cats, which fight, run off and howl in much the same way before mating.
[2] After several such vulgar combats, the violators are removed and conveyed to a cavern where they are forced into some work. But because they have a sick smell in consequence of their having dispelled the conjugial inclination, which is the precious treasure of human life, they are banished to the fringes of the western zone. At some distance there they appear emaciated, as though consisting of bones covered only by skin; while from afar they look like panthers.
When it was granted me to view them closer up, I was surprised to see that some of them were holding books in their hands and reading. I was told that this was because in the world they had made various declarations regarding the spiritual things of the church and yet had defiled them by adulteries, even to these extremes of them, and that of such a character was the correspondence of this lust with the violation of the spiritual marriage.
It should be known, however, that men who are caught up in this lust are rare.
Because it is not becoming for them to prostitute their love, some women, certainly, do at times resist, and their show of resistance does arouse, but still this does not emanate from any lust to be violated.
The lust to seduce states of innocence is not the lust to deflower nor the lust to rape, but is a particular and separate lust by itself. It is found especially in guileful men. The women who appear to them as embodiments of innocence are ones who regard the evil of licentiousness as an enormous sin, and who thus devote themselves to chastity and at the same time piety. It is for these women that they burn. In Roman Catholic countries the women are nuns. Because they believe these nuns to be embodiments of innocence beyond all others, they regard them as choice and exquisite objects for their lust.
Being men of guile, in order to seduce these women, whether nuns or others, they first devise stratagems, and after they have infused their character with them, without restraint of conscience they put them as though naturally into execution. Their stratagems are principally pretenses of innocence, love, chastity and piety. By these and other deceptions they work their way into the women’s interior friendship and so into their love; and by various persuasions and at the same time suggestions they turn this then from a spiritual love into a natural one, and afterwards by incitements into a fleshly, carnal one, and at that point possess them at their pleasure. When they have accomplished this, they rejoice in heart and laugh at the women they have violated.
After they have passed through the first period of time, which is spent in outward appearances, in which they are more elegant in their manners and more sweet-spoken in their conversations than many others, they are impelled into the second period of their life, which is devoted to inner realities, in which their lust is set free and begins its sport. At that point they are then taken first to women who had taken a vow of chastity. In their company they are examined to see how malignant their lust is, in order to prevent their being judged until proven guilty. When the men sense the women’s chastity, their guile begins to operate and to work its deceits; but on meeting with no success, they depart from them.
[2] Next they are introduced to women of genuine innocence. When they attempt to deceive these in the same way, by a power given the women they are severely punished; for the women inflict on their hands and feet a heavy numbness, and on their necks as well, and finally cause to them to feel as though they are about to faint. Then, when the men are thus afflicted, the women tear themselves away from them.
After that a path is opened for them to a particular band of harlots who have learned to skillfully feign innocence; and these harlots first make them objects of laughter in their company, until, after receiving various promises, they finally allow themselves to be violated.
[3] Following several such scenes, a third period ensues which is one of judgment. At that time those who have been proven guilty then sink down and are gathered to their like, in a hell which is situated in the northern zone, where they appear at a distance as weasels.
However, if they have been consumed with guile, they are taken from there to a hell of the guileful which is situated deep in the hinder part of the western zone. In that hell they appear at a distance as serpents of various kinds, and the most guileful as vipers.
Still, in the hell itself, which I was granted to see into, they looked to me as though sickly pale and chalk-faced. Moreover, because they are filled with nothing but lust, they do not like to speak; and if they speak, they only mutter and mumble various things which are not intelligible to any but their companions next to them. But as soon as they sit or stand they make themselves invisible and flit about in the cavern like ghosts; for they are then in a state of fantasy, and the imagination seems to fly.
After flying around they come to rest; and then, surprisingly, they do not recognize one another. The reason for this is that they are engrossed in guile, and guile does acknowledge another’s existence and so holds itself aloof.
When these spirits sense anything of conjugial love, they flee into underground chambers and hide. They are also without any love for the opposite sex, and are figures of utter impotence. They are called infernal genii.
I would start off here with something about correspondence and what it is, but that is not the subject of this book. However, what correspondence is may be seen in summary form in nos. 76 and 342 above, and more fully in The Apocalypse Revealed from beginning to end, which deals with the correspondence between the natural meaning and spiritual meaning of the Word.
That the Word has a natural meaning and a spiritual meaning, and that there is a correspondence between them – this we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, and specifically in nos. 5-26 there.
That the Word consists of such a marriage may be seen fully attested in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 80-90.
There is a correspondence between these violations of the Word and of the church and the forbidden classes of people enumerated in Leviticus 18.
Now because all those who are in hell are caught up in the connubial alliance of evil and falsity, and this is the essence of spiritual adultery, and all those who are in heaven are caught up in the marriage of good and truth, and this is the essence of marriage, therefore the whole of hell is called an adultery, and the whole of heaven a marriage.
– – – – – – – – – – –
My sight was opened to see a dark forest and in it a mob of satyrs. The satyrs’ chests were hairy, and some had feet like those of calves, some feet like those of panthers, and some feet like those of wolves, with claws instead of toes.
These satyrs were running about, shouting, “Where are the women?” And I then saw some whores who were waiting for them. They, too, were monstrous in various ways.
The satyrs ran up to them and took hold of them, dragging them away into a cavern which was situated in the middle of the forest deep beneath the earth. On the ground around the cavern, moreover, lay a great serpent coiled in a spiral, which spewed its venom into the cavern. In the branches of the forest above the serpent, deadly birds of the night were cawing and shrieking. But the satyrs and whores did not see these things, because they were forms corresponding to their lascivious lusts and thus appearances visible usually only from a distance.
[2] They afterwards emerged from the cavern and went into a certain low shack, which was a brothel; and having parted from the whores the satyrs then talked together, to whose conversation I lent an ear (for speech in the spiritual world can be heard at a distance as though in one’s presence, since an extent of space there is only an appearance). They were talking about marriage, nature and religion.
Marriage was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of calves, and they said, “What is marriage but legalized adultery? And what is sweeter than licentious charades and the deceiving of husbands?”
The rest responded to this with guffaws and clapped their hands in applause.
Nature was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of panthers, and they said, “What else is there but nature? Is there any difference between man and beast other than the fact that a man can articulate his thoughts in speech, while a beast can only make sounds? Do they not both have life from heat and understanding from light by the operation of nature?”
At this the rest exclaimed, “Oh, with what judgment you speak!”
Religion was the subject of those whose feet looked like those of wolves, and they spoke, saying, “What is God or the Divine but the inmost working of nature? What is religion but an invention to capture and bind the masses?”
In response to this the rest cried “Bravo!”
[3] Some moments later they burst forth, and as they did so they saw me in the distance looking at them with intent eyes. Angered at this, they rushed out of the forest and with a menacing expression hastened their way to me.
“Why are you standing here and attending to our whisperings?” they said. To which I replied, “Why not? What is there to stop me? They were audible utterances.” And I recounted to them what I had heard them saying.
At that their dispositions became calmer, and this because they were afraid of having what they said divulged. They also began to speak with restraint then and to behave with propriety, by which I recognized that they did not come from the lower classes but from worthier stock.
At that point I then related to them that I had seen them in the forest as satyrs, twenty of them as calf-like satyrs, six as panther-like satyrs, and four as wolf-like satyrs (there being thirty of them altogether).
[4] They were astonished at this, as they themselves had seen each other there only as men, just as they were now seeing themselves here with me. But I told them that that was the way they appeared at a distance because of their licentious lust, and that that satyr form was the form of their dissolute adultery and not the form of their person. I gave as a reason the following, that every evil lust presents a likeness of itself in some particular form, which is not seen by the people themselves, but by others standing at a distance. I then said to them, “To convince yourselves, send some of your number into that forest while the rest of you remain here and watch.”
So they did as I said and sent off two, and the rest saw them next to that shanty brothel altogether as satyrs; and when the two returned, they greeted them as satyrs and said, “Oh, what impostors!”
As they were laughing over this, I joked with them in various ways, and I reported to them that I had seen adulterers looking also like pigs. I also recalled then the story of Ulysses and Circe, how she had sprinkled Ulysses’s companions and men with Hecatean herbs and touched them with a magic wand and so turned them into pigs – “into adulterers, perhaps,” I said, “because by no art could she have turned anyone into a pig!”
After they finished laughing at these and similar remarks, I asked them whether they knew from what countries in the world they came. They said they came from various different countries and mentioned by name Italy, Poland, Germany, England, and Sweden. I then asked whether they saw anyone among them from Holland, and they said they did not.
[5] After that I turned the conversation to more serious matters, and I asked whether they ever considered that adultery is a sin.
“What is sin?” they replied. “We do not know what it is.”
I asked whether they ever remembered that adultery is against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue.
They replied, “What is the Decalogue? Is it not the catechism? What does that children’s booklet have to do with men like us?”
I asked whether they ever had any thought of hell.
They replied, “Who has come up from there and told us?”
I asked whether they had had any thought in the world regarding life after death.
They said, “The same thought as we did of animals, and sometimes the same as we did of ghosts, which, if they are exhaled from corpses, float away.”
Again I asked whether they had heard anything concerning any of these matters from priests.
They replied that they attended only to the sound of their voices, and not to the subject and what that was.
[6] Stunned by these responses, I said to them, “Turn your face and eyes to the middle of the forest where the cavern is that you were in.”
So they turned around, and they saw the great serpent coiled around it in a spiral and spewing in its venom, and also the baleful birds in the branches above it.
And I asked, “What do you see?”
But terror-stricken, they made no answer.
So I said, “Is it not a horrid sight that you see? You should know that it is a representation of adultery in the atrocity of its lust.”
Suddenly then an angel appeared standing near. He was a priest, and he opened a hell in the western zone into which people of this character are finally gathered. And he said, “Look over there.”
They then saw what appeared to be a lake of fire; and in it they recognized some of their friends in the world, who beckoned them to join them.
Having seen and heard these things, the men turned and hastened from my sight on a course away from the forest. But I observed their steps, seeing that they pretended to go on a course away from the forest, but that by roundabout ways they made their way back it.
Several weeks later, however, when I again looked in that direction, I saw to the right side of the site a stretch of fertile land, and on it several farmers. And several weeks again after that I saw new growth sprouting from that piece of land, surrounded by bushes.
At that time I then heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Go into your chamber, shut the door, and attend to the work begun on the Apocalypse; and pursue this in two years to a conclusion.”
The Lord says, “Judge not, that you be not condemned.”* (Matthew 7:1) This cannot in the least mean judging of someone’s moral and civil life in the world, but judging of someone’s spiritual and heavenly life. Who does not see that if people were not allowed to judge of the moral life of those dwelling with them in the world, society would collapse? What would become of society if there were no public courts of law, and if no one was permitted to have his judgment of another? But to judge what the inner mind or soul is like within, thus what a person’s spiritual state is and so his fate after death – of this one is not permitted to judge, because it is known to the Lord alone. Nor does the Lord reveal it until after death, in order that everyone may do what he does in freedom, and that good or evil may consequently be from him and so in him, and the person thus live his own life and be his own person to eternity.
The inner qualities of the mind, hidden in the world, are revealed after death for the reason that it affects and benefits the societies into which the person then comes; for all there are spiritual. That these inner qualities are then revealed is evident from these words of the Lord:
There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light; and what you have spoken into the ear in your rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. (Luke 12:2,3)
[2] A general judgment is allowed, such as the following, “If you are in your inward qualities as you appear in your outward ones, you will be saved or condemned.” But a specific judgment – as for example to say, “You are of this or that character in your inward qualities, therefore you will be saved or condemned” – is not allowed.
Judgment with respect to a person’s spiritual life or the inner life of the soul is meant by the imputation which we take up here. What mortal person knows who is licentious at heart and who is married at heart? And yet it is the thoughts of the heart, or purposes of the will, which judge everyone.
But this subject will be presented according to the following outline:
(1) Everyone has imputed to him after death the evil in which he is engaged; likewise the good.
(2) A transfer of one person’s good to another is impossible.
(3) If such a transference is meant by imputation, imputation is a frivolous term.
(4) Evil is imputed to a person in accordance with the nature of his will and in accordance with the nature of his understanding; so, too, good.
(5) Thus is licentious love imputed to a person.
(6) And so, too, conjugial love.
Explanation of these statements now follows.
* The text here follows the translation of Sebastian Schmidt, Biblia Sacra, Argentorati (Strasburg), 1696.
1. Everyone has his own particular life.
2. His own life awaits everyone after death.
3. An evil person then has the evilness of his life imputed to him, and a good person the goodness of his life.
First, that everyone has his own particular life. People know that everyone has his own particular life, thus one distinct from that of another. For there is a perpetual variety in everything, and no two things are the same. Therefore everyone has his own identity. This is clearly apparent from people’s faces. No one’s face is exactly like that of another, nor can it be to eternity. That is because no two minds are alike, and the mind begets the face; for the face is, as people say, an image of the mind, and the mind draws its origin and form from the person’s life.
[2] If a person did not have his own particular life, as he does his own particular mind and his own particular face, he would not have any life after death distinct from that of another. Indeed, neither would there be a heaven, for heaven consists of perpetually distinct individuals. Its form derives solely from varieties of souls and minds disposed into such an order that they constitute a united whole, and this from one whose life is in each and every element there as the soul is in man. If this were not so, heaven would be dispersed, because its form would be dissolved.
The one from whom each and every one of its constituents has life, and who causes the form to cohere, is the Lord.
Every form in general consists of a variety of elements, and its character depends on the harmonious coordination and disposition of these into a united whole. Such is the human form. So it is that, although consisting of so many members, viscera and organs, a person has no sensation of anything arising in him or emanating from him except as its being a united whole.
[3] Second, that his own life awaits everyone after death. People in the church know this from the Word, and it is known from the following passages there:
…the Son of man will come…, and then He will render to each according to his deeds. (Matthew 16:27)
…I saw…books…opened…. And they were judged, all according to their works. (Revelation 20:12,13)
…in the day of…judgment…, (God) will render to each one according to his works. (Romans 2:5,6. Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10)
The works according to which it will be rendered to everyone are his life, because it is his life that does them and they are in accord with his life.
Because it has been granted me for many years to be in the company of angels and to speak with newcomers from the world, I can testify for a certainty that everyone is examined there to discover what sort of life he led, and that the life he acquired in the world awaits him as his life to eternity. I have spoken with people who lived centuries ago, whose life was known to me from historical records, and I have found it to be like the description. I have also been told by angels that a person’s life cannot be changed after death, because it has been structured in accordance with his love and consequent works. Moreover, that if it were changed, the organic structure would be destroyed, which can never happen. They also said that a change in the organic structure is possible only in the material body, and not at all possible in the spiritual body after the former has been cast off.
[4] Third, that an evil person then has the evilness of his life imputed to him, and a good person the goodness of his life. An imputation of evil does not require indictment, arraignment, conviction and sentencing as in the world, but it is brought about by the evil itself. For evil people of their own free will separate themselves from the good, since they cannot be together. The delights of an evil love detest the delights of a good love, and atmospheres of delight emanate from everyone there like odors from every plant on earth; for these are not absorbed and concealed by a material body as before, but flow freely out into the spiritual atmosphere from their loves. So, because evil there is detected virtually in its smell, it is this which indicts, arraigns, convicts and sentences, not in the presence of some judge, but in the presence of everyone who is in a state of good. This, then, is what we mean by imputation. Moreover, an evil person chooses companions with whom to live in his delight, and because he detests the delight of good, of his own accord he betakes himself to his like in hell.
[5] An imputation of good is effected similarly. This happens in the case of those who in the world acknowledged that every good in them was from the Lord and none from themselves. After they have been prepared, they are conveyed into the interior delights of good, and a path is then opened for them into heaven, to a society whose delights are homogeneous with theirs. This is brought about by the Lord.
1. Every person is born into a state of evil.
2. He is brought into a state of good by the Lord through regeneration.
3. This is accomplished through his living a life in accordance with the Lord’s precepts.
4. Consequently good, when so implanted, cannot be transferred.
First, that every person is born into a state of evil. This is known in the church. It is said that this evil comes by inheritance from Adam, but it comes from one’s parents. Everyone derives from them an innate character in the form of a disposition. That this is so both reason and experience attest. For similarities to parents appear in their offspring’s faces, natures and habits, in the first generation and in their posterity after them. Many people recognize to what families others belong and judge of their temperaments on that account. Consequently, it is the evils that the parents themselves have acquired and by transmission passed on to their offspring into which people are born.
People believe that the guilt of Adam has been impressed on the whole human race for the reason that few reflect upon any evil in themselves so as to recognize it in them. Consequently they suppose that it is so deeply hidden as not to appear except in the sight of God.
[2] Second, that a person is brought into a state of good by the Lord through regeneration. That rebirth or regeneration is possible, and that unless one is reborn or regenerated, he cannot enter into heaven, is clearly apparent from the Lord’s words in John 3:3,5.* It cannot be unknown in the Christian world that regeneration is a purification from evils and thus a renewal of life, for reason sees this also when it acknowledges that everyone is born into evil, and that evil cannot like dirt and grime be washed or wiped away by soap and water, but only by repentance.
[3] Third, that a person is brought into a state of good by the Lord through his living a life in accordance with the Lord’s precepts. There are five precepts necessary for regeneration, which may be seen listed above in no. 82.** Included among them are the following: that evils must be abstained from because they are of the devil and from the devil, and that good deeds must be done because they are of God and from God; also that people should turn to the Lord to lead them to do these things. Let everyone consider in himself and weigh whether a person obtains good from any other source. And if he does not obtain good, neither does he obtain salvation.
[4] Fourth, that good, when so implanted, cannot be transferred. By transfer we mean a transference of one person’s good to another.
It follows from the observations made above that by regeneration a person is made entirely new in respect to his spirit, and that this is achieved through his living a life in accordance with the Lord’s precepts. Who does not see that this renewal can be accomplished only in the process of time, much as a tree progressively takes root and grows from a seed and is perfected?
People who have another perception of regeneration do not know anything about a person’s state, nor anything about evil and good, that these two are entirely opposed, and that good cannot be implanted except in the measure that evil is removed. Nor do they know that as long as a person is in a state of evil, he is antipathetic to any good that is good in itself. Consequently, if the good in one person were to be transferred to another in a state of evil, it would be like casting a lamb before a wolf, or like attaching a pearl to the snout of a pig.
It is apparent from this that a transfer is impossible.
* “Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God….’ ‘…unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.'”
** Namely, 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.
In the world, by people, virtues can in a way be transferred, that is, good can be done to children on account of their parents, or favor shown to the friends of a supporter. However, the goodness of the virtue cannot be impressed on their souls, but only outwardly attached to their person.
The same sort of transfer is not possible as regards people’s spiritual life. This, as we showed before, must be implanted, and if it is not implanted through a person’s living a life in accordance with the Lord’s precepts noted above, he remains in the state of evil into which he was born. Before any change takes place, no good can touch him. If it does, it is immediately repulsed and bounces off, like a rubber ball falling on to a rock, or it is swallowed up like a diamond thrown into a marsh.
[2] A person unreformed in spirit is like a panther or an owl and may be compared to a bramble bush and a nettle. On the other hand, a regenerate person is like a sheep or a dove and may be compared to an olive tree and a vine. If by imputation is meant the transfer of something, please think, if you will, how by any imputation a panther-like person can be changed into a sheep-like person, or an owl into a dove, or a bramble bush into an olive tree, or a nettle into a vine. For a change to take place, must not the savage nature of the panther and owl or the injurious nature of the bramble bush and nettle be removed first and thus a truly human and harmless nature implanted? How this is accomplished the Lord also teaches in John, in chapter 15, verses 1-7.*
* “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so will you be My disciples.”
[2] It is clear from this what is meant by the deeds or works according to which everyone will be judged, namely, that it is the will and intellect; consequently that by evil works are meant the works of an evil will, however they may have appeared in outward respects, and that by good works are meant the works of a good will, even if they appeared in outward respects like works emanating from an evil person.
Everything that a person does from his inner will is done purposefully, since whatever that will intends to do it purposes to itself. And everything that a person does from his intellect is done deliberately, since the intellect deliberates.
It follows in consequence of this that everyone has imputed to him evil or good in accordance with the nature of his will in these and in accordance with the nature of his understanding regarding them.
[3] I am able to confirm this by the following account. In the spiritual world I have encountered many spirits who, in the natural world, had lived like others – dressing grandly, dining elegantly, doing business like others at a profit, attending theatrical performances, joking about the actions of lovers in a seemingly lustful manner, and other like things. And yet angels attributed these things to some as sinful evils, and did not attribute them to others as evil, declaring the former guilty, but the latter innocent. Upon my asking the reason for this, when the people had done much the same things, the angels replied that they regard everyone in the light of his purpose, intention or end, and make distinctions accordingly; and that they therefore excuse or condemn those whom the end either excuses or condemns, since an end for good is the end of all in heaven, and an end for evil the end of all in hell.
Who does not know that one who is an adulterer is not on that account a murderer, thief, and false witness, nor wills to be? But one who is a purposeful and deliberate adulterer – such a one regards everything having to do with religion as nothing, including therefore murder, theft, and false witness; and if he refrains from them, he does not do so because they are sins, but because he fears the law and damage to his reputation.
It may be see above, nos. 490-493, and in two narrative accounts, nos. 500 and 521, 522, that purposeful and deliberate adulterers account the sacred tenets of the church and religion as nothing. The case is the same if anyone acts purposefully or deliberately against any other commandment of the Decalogue, namely, that he acts also against the rest, because he does not regard anything as a sin.
A person comes into this purpose if he examines himself once or twice a year and repents of the evil that he finds himself. Not so one who never examines himself.
This makes clear who it is to whom sin is not imputed, and who it is to whom it is imputed.
There are various circumstances in the world which mitigate and excuse offenses, and also which aggravate and worsen them. Even so, however, imputations after death are not made in accordance with circumstances that outwardly surround the deed, but in accordance with the internal circumstances of the mind; and these are regarded in everyone in accord with the state of the church in him. So it is, for example, with a person impious in will and intellect, being one who has no fear of God nor any love for the neighbor, and consequently no reverence for any sanctity of the church. After death he is held guilty of all the offenses which he committed in the body, nor is there any remembrance of his good deeds; for his heart, the wellspring from which those offenses poured as from a fountain, was turned away from heaven and turned towards hell, and actions flow from the place where one’s heart has its abode.
[2] In order for this to be understood, let me relate a secret. Heaven is distinguished into innumerable societies, and so likewise, in opposition to them, hell; and every person’s mind actually dwells in accordance with his will and consequent intellect in one of these societies, intending and thinking along with the inhabitants there in similar ways. If the mind is in some society of heaven, then it intends and thinks in like manner as the inhabitants there. If it is in some society of hell, it does so in like manner as the inhabitants there. However, as long a person lives in the world, he migrates from one society to another in accordance with changes in the affections of his will and so in the thoughts of his mind. But after death his sojournings are brought together, and from these assembled into a single path a place is appointed for him, in hell if he is evil, in heaven if he is good.
[3] Now because all in hell have a will for evil, all are regarded there in accordance with that; and because all in heaven have a will for good, all are regarded there in accordance with it. Consequently imputations after death are made in accordance with the nature of a person’s will and understanding.
The same thing happens in cases of licentiousness, whether they be cases of fornication, or of resorting to a courtesan, or of taking a mistress, or of adultery, since these are imputed to a person, not in accordance with the deeds, but in accordance with the state of mind in the deeds. For deeds go with the body into the tomb, whereas the mind rises again.
This being the case, it is possible for conjugial love to exist in one partner and not at the same time in the other. It is possible as well for that love to lie so deeply hidden that the person himself has no awareness of it. And it may also be implanted during the course of one’s life. The reason is that conjugial love in its progress accompanies religion; and because religion is the marriage of the Lord and the church, religion is what initiates and infuses that love. Consequently conjugial love is imputed to a person after death in accordance with his spiritual rational life. Moreover, for one to whom that love is imputed, a marriage is, after his passing, provided in heaven, whatever the character of any marriage he may have had in the world.
From this now proceeds the following conclusion, that one ought not to take the appearances in marriages or the appearances in acts of licentiousness and infer from them of someone that he has conjugial love or not. Therefore, Judge not, that you be not condemned. (Matthew 7:1)
– – – – – – – – – – –
I was once in my spirit taken up to the angelic heaven and into one of its societies; and some of the wise there then came to me and said, “What news do you have from earth?”
“This is new,” I said, “that the Lord has revealed secrets which surpass in excellence all the secrets previously revealed from the inception of the Church.”
“What are they?” they asked.
I said that they were the following:
(1) That in the Word and in each and every particular of it, there is a spiritual meaning corresponding to the natural meaning; that through that spiritual meaning people of the church are conjoined with the Lord and affiliated with angels; and that in it lies the holiness of the Word.
[2] (2) That the corresponding elements of which the spiritual meaning of the Word consists have been disclosed.
The angels asked whether the inhabitants of the earth knew anything about correspondences before. I said that they knew nothing at all of them. They have lain hidden now for several thousand years, I said, namely from the time of Job. Among peoples who lived at that time and before, a study of correspondences was the study of studies, from which they had their wisdom, because they gained from it a concept of spiritual things having to do with heaven and so with the church. But because that study was turned into an idolatrous one, it was of the Lord’s Divine providence so blotted out and lost that no one has seen any trace of it. However, knowledge of it has nevertheless now been disclosed by the Lord, I said, in order that people of the church may be conjoined with Him and affiliated with angels. This conjunction and affiliation are effected through the Word, in which each and every particular is a correspondent form.
The angels greatly rejoiced that it had pleased the Lord to reveal this great secret, which for several thousand years had lain so deeply hidden. And they said it was done in order that the Christian Church, founded as it is on the Word and being now at its end, might be revived and again draw its spirit through heaven from the Lord.
They inquired as well whether in consequence of that knowledge it had at this time been disclosed what baptism and Holy Supper symbolize, sacraments about which people have hitherto had such various thoughts. And I replied that it had been disclosed.
[3] I said further, (3) that the Lord has now revealed the circumstances of people’s life after death.
The angels said, “What about life after death? Who does not know that a person lives after death?”
“They know it and do not know it,” I replied. “They say that what lives after death is not the person but his soul, and that this lives on as a spirit, of which they harbor an idea as of its being like the wind or ether, saying that it does not live as a real person until after the day of the Last Judgment. At that time, they say, the elements of the body which were left in the world, even though eaten by worms, mice and fish, will be gathered together again and constituted once more into a body, and that it is thus that people will rise again.”
“What is this you are saying?” the angels said. “Who does not know that a person lives as a person after death, the only difference being that he then lives as a spiritual person? And who does not know that a spiritual person sees a spiritual person as a material person does a material one, without their being aware of a single distinction, except that they are living in a more perfect state?”
[4] The angels then inquired, “What do people know of our world, and of heaven and hell?”
I said that they have known nothing, but (4) that the Lord has now disclosed the nature of the world in which angels and spirits live, thus the nature of heaven and the nature of hell; as also that angels and spirits live in affiliation with men; in addition to many other wonders connected with them.
The angels were gladdened that it had pleased the Lord to disclose such things, so that people would no longer suffer such ignorance as to be in a state of uncertainty regarding their immortality.
[5] Going on, I said, (5) “The Lord has now revealed that there is in your world a different sun from the one in our world; that the sun of your world is pure love, while the sun of our world is nothing but fire; that because your sun is pure love, everything that emanates from it brings with it something of life, while because our sun is nothing but fire, everything that emanates from it brings with it nothing of life; also that this is the origin of the difference between what is spiritual and what is natural, a difference hitherto unknown which has also been disclosed.”
It has been made known in consequence of this, I said, from what source the light comes which enlightens the human intellect with wisdom, and from what source the warmth comes which kindles the human will with love.
[6] In addition, it has been disclosed (6) that there are three degrees of life, and consequently three heavens; that the human mind is divided into these degrees, and that the human being thus corresponds to the three heavens.
“Did people not know this before?” said the angels.
I replied that they knew about greater and lesser degrees in a range, but nothing about prior and subsequent degrees.
[7] The angels asked whether in addition to these disclosures anything else had been revealed. I said that a number of other things had been, namely, (7) concerning the Last Judgment; concerning the Lord, that He is God of heaven and earth, that God is one both in person and in essence, in whom is the Divine trinity, and that He is the Lord; also concerning the New Church about to be established by Him, and the doctrine of that church; concerning the sacredness of the Holy Scripture; as also that the Apocalypse has been revealed, nothing of which could have been revealed, not even in one little verse, except by the Lord.
Included also is a revelation concerning inhabitants of other planets and concerning other earths in the universe, I said; as well as many accounts and wonders from the spiritual world, by which much else having to do with wisdom has been disclosed from heaven.
The angels were surprised at this, and they petitioned the Lord to permit them to look down into the world; and on looking down, behold, they saw only darkness there.
They were then told to write these secrets on a piece of paper, and to let the paper descend to the earth, at which time they would see a portent. So they did so. And lo, the piece of paper with these secrets written upon it was let go from heaven, and as it descended, while still in the spiritual world, it shone like a star. But as it floated down into the natural world, the light disappeared, and the further it fell, the darker it became.
Then, when the angels directed it into gatherings of people containing certain educated and learned representatives from the clergy and laity, a murmur arose from many of them, in which were heard the following words: “What is this? Is it of any consequence? What does it matter if we know these things or not? Are they not creations of the brain?”
Moreover, some of them appeared as though to take the piece of paper and to fold it, roll it up, and unroll it with their fingers, in order to obliterate the writing; while others appeared as though to tear it up, and some to try to trample it with their feet. But they were kept by the Lord from such a wickedness, and the angels were commanded to withdraw the paper and protect it.
After that, because the angels were saddened and thought to themselves how long this would be the case, they were told, “For a time and times and half a time.” (Revelation 12:14)
“Who does not know,” the angels said, “that the delights of conjugial love surpass the delights of all other loves? And who cannot see that into some love have been gathered all the blessings, felicities and delights that could ever be conferred by the Lord, and that their receptacle is truly conjugial love, which is able to receive and perceive them to a full sensation of them?”
I replied that they did not know this, because they did not go to the Lord and live according to His commandments, refraining from evils as sins and doing good. For truly conjugial love with its delights comes solely from the Lord and is given to those who live according to His commandments. Thus it is given to those who are received into the Lord’s New Church, I said, the church that is meant in the book of Revelation by the New Jerusalem.
To this I added that I was uncertain whether people in the world today would be willing to believe that this love in itself is a spiritual love and thus stems from religion, because they harbor only a fleshly idea of it.
At that the angels said to me, “Write about it and pursue the revelation; and afterwards we will take the book you have written on the subject and let it descend from heaven. Then we shall see whether the points it contains are received, including at the same time whether people are willing to acknowledge that the character of this love is in accordance with the religion in a person, spiritual in the spiritual, natural in the natural, and merely carnal in adulterers.”
In response I asked whether these revelations were not miracles, and received the reply, “They are not.”
So I asked what miracles they meant, then, and was told, “Show us and reveal to us things to come and we will believe.”
But I replied, “Such knowledge is not granted from heaven, since to the degree that a person knows things to come, his reason and understanding fall with his prudence and wisdom into a state of passivity, become inactive, and are overthrown.”
Again therefore I asked, “What other miracles shall I do?”
Whereupon I then heard the cry, “Do miracles like the ones Moses did in Egypt!”
To that I replied, “Perhaps you will harden your hearts to them as Pharaoh and the Egyptians did.”
And they answered that they would not.
Again I said, however, “Swear to me that you will not dance around a golden calf and worship it like the posterity of Jacob,* which they did within the space of a month after they saw the whole of Mount Sinai ablaze and heard Jehovah Himself speaking from out of the fire,** thus which they did following a miracle which was the greatest of all. A golden calf in the spiritual sense is the pleasure of the flesh.”
And the people replied from below, “We will not be like the posterity of Jacob.”
But at that I then heard this declaration to them from heaven, “If you do not believe Moses and the prophets, which is to say, the Word of the Lord, you will not believe as a result of miracles any more than the children of Jacob did in the wilderness; neither any more than those others believed when they saw with their own eyes the miracles the Lord Himself performed when He was in the world.”***
* Exodus 32.
** Exodus 19:16-20:18.
*** Cf. Luke 16:31.
INDEX OF NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS
Conjugial love seen in its embodiment in a married couple conveyed down from heaven (nos. 42, 43).
Three newcomers from the world instructed about marriages in heaven (no. 44).
Concerning a chaste love for the opposite sex (no. 55).
The Temple of Wisdom, where wise men discussed the reasons for the beauty in the female sex (no. 56).
Conjugial love among people who lived in the golden age (no. 75).
Among people who lived in the silver age (no. 76).
Among people who lived in the copper age (no. 77).
Among people who lived in the iron age (no. 78).
Among peoples who lived after those ages (nos. 79, 80).
A glorification of the Lord by angels in the heavens on account of His advent, and celebrating then conjugial love (no. 81).
The precepts of the New Church (no. 82).
The origin of conjugial love and its vigor or potency, discussed by wise men assembled from the European world (nos. 103-114).
A piece of paper sent down from heaven to the earth, on which was written, “The marriage between good and truth” (no. 115).
What the image and likeness of God are, and what the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are (nos. 132-136).
Two angels from the third heaven on conjugial love there (no. 137).
Some men of olden times in Greece, who inquired of newcomers what news they had from earth and learned of people found in a forest there (nos. 151 [repeated]-154 [repeated]).
Golden rain, and a hall where some wives made various comments on the subject of conjugial love (no. 155 [repeated]).
Some sages of olden times in Greece on people’s life after death (no. 182).
A wedding garden called Adramandoni, where a conversation took place on the influx of conjugial love (no. 183).
Some sages of olden times in Greece on occupations in heaven (no. 207).
The golden rain and hall, where some wives spoke again on the subject of conjugial love (no. 208).
The judges swayed by partiality, who were the subject of the cry, “Oh, how just!” (no. 231).
The reasoners who were the subject of the cry, “Oh, how learned!” (no. 232).
The confirmers who were the subject of the cry, “Oh, how wise!” (no. 233).
On people who are motivated by a love of governing from love of self (nos. 261-266).
On people who are motivated by a love of possessing all the goods of the world (nos. 267, 268).
“Lucifer” (no. 269).
On coldness in marriage (no. 270).
Seven wives sitting in a rose garden, who made various comments on the subject of conjugial love (no. 293).
The same wives on the prudence of women (no. 294).
A discussion of what the soul is and the nature of it (no. 315).
A garden where a discourse occurred on the subject of Divine providence in relation to marriages (no. 316).
The difference between the spiritual and the natural (nos. 326-329).
Discussions as to whether a woman loves her husband if she loves herself on account of her beauty, and whether a man loves his wife if he loves himself on account of his intelligence (nos. 330, 331).
On one’s own prudence (nos. 353, 354).
On the continual ability to make love to one’s wife in heaven (nos. 355, 356).
A discussion as to whether nature is a product of life, or life a product of nature, and how this applies to the center and expanse of life and nature (no. 380).
Some lecturers speaking on the origin of the beauty of the feminine sex (nos. 381-384).
On the point that everything that arises or occurs in the natural world comes from the Lord through the spiritual world (nos. 415-422).
Some angels who did not know what licentiousness was (no. 444).
On delight, that it is the universal characteristic of heaven and hell (no. 461).
An adulterer taken up into heaven, where he saw contrary sights (no. 477).
Three priests whom adulterers denounced (no. 500).
On purposeful and deliberate adulterers, that they do not acknowledge anything having to do with heaven and the church (nos. 521, 522).
The new things revealed by the Lord (nos. 532-535).
THEOLOGICAL BOOKS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY ME
Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), which contain an exegesis of Genesis and Exodus. 8 volumes. London, 1747-1758.
Heaven and Hell. The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine. The Last Judgment. The White Horse. The Earths in the Universe. London, 1758.
The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord. The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture. The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem. [The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding Faith.] A Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World. Amsterdam, 1763.
Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence. Also, Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom. Amsterdam, 1763-1764.*
The Apocalypse Revealed. Amsterdam, 1766.
These books are still being sold in London, at the establishment of Mr. John Hart, Printer, in Poppings Court, Fleet Street, and at the establishment of Mr. John Lewis, in Paternoster Row, near Cheapside.
In two years you will see the doctrine of the New Church, the church foretold by the Lord in the book of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, presented in fullness.**
* Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom was in fact published before the work on Divine providence, toward the end of 1763, and Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence in 1764.
** A reference to True Christian Religion, Containing the Universal Theology of the New Church, which was published in Amsterdam in 1771.
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