Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 188

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188. IV. THAT WITH MEN THERE IS ELEVATION OF THE MIND INTO SUPERIOR LIGHT, AND WITH WOMEN ELEVATION OF THE MIND INTO SUPERIOR HEAT; AND THAT WOMAN FEELS THE DELIGHTS OF HER HEAT IN THE LIGHT OF THE MAN. By the light into which men are elevated is meant intelligence and wisdom; for spiritual light, which proceeds from the sun of the spiritual world and which in its essence is wisdom,* plays an equal part with these two, that is, acts as one with them. And by the heat into which women are elevated is meant conjugial love; for in its essence spiritual heat which proceeds from the sun of that world is love, and with women it is love conjoining itself with the intelligence and wisdom with men. In its complex, this love is called conjugial love and by determination it becomes that love. [2] It is said elevation into superior light and superior heat because the elevation is into the light and heat in which are the angels of the higher heavens. Moreover, it is an actual elevation, as from a mist into the air, and from a lower region of the latter into a higher, and from this into the ether. Therefore, with men, elevation into superior light is elevation into superior intelligence, and from this into wisdom, there being also an ever higher elevation into the latter. But the elevation into superior heat with women is elevation into a more chaste and purer conjugial love, and ever upwards towards that conjugial which from creation is latent in their inmost being. [3] Regarded in themselves, these elevations are openings of the mind; for the human mind is distinguished into regions just as the world is distinguished into regions in respect to its atmospheres, the lowest of which is aqueous, the higher, aerial, and the still higher, ethereal, above which, moreover, is the highest. Into like regions is the human mind elevated as that mind is opened--with men by wisdom and with women by love truly conjugial. * The Latin text is qui [sol]... est amor, but the context shows that this should be quae [lux]... est sapientia in apposition to qui [calor]...est amor.


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