Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 273

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273. II. THAT IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD ALL ARE CONJOINED ACCORDING TO INTERNAL AFFECTIONS, BUT NOT ACCORDING TO EXTERNAL UNLESS THESE ACT AS ONE WITH THE INTERNAL. The reason is because the material body, which as just stated could receive and exhibit the forms of all affections, is then cast off and the man, stripped of that body, is in his internal affections which his body had previously concealed. Hence it is that homogeneities and heterogeneities, or sympathies and antipathies, are then not only felt but also come to view in face, speech, and gesture. Therefore similitudes are then conjoined and dissimilitudes separated. This is the reason why the entire heaven is arranged by the Lord according to all the varieties of the affections of the love of good and truth, and hell, on the contrary, according to all the varieties of the affections of the love of evil and falsity. [2] Since angels and spirits equally with men in the world have internal and external affections, and since, with them, the internal affections cannot be concealed by the external, therefore they show through and manifest themselves. Hence with them, the two are brought into similitude and correspondence, and then their internal affections through the external are effigied in their faces, perceived in the tones of their speech, and seen in their habitual gestures. Angels and spirits have internal and external affections because they have a mind and a body, and affections and the thoughts therefrom belong to the mind, and the sensations and the pleasures therefrom to the body. [3] In the spiritual world it often occurs, that after death friends meet and remember their friendship in the former world; and they then think that they are to associate together in a life of friendship as before. But when that association which is merely of the external affections is perceived in heaven, a separation takes place according to the internal affections. Then, from that first meeting, some are sent away to the north and some to the west, being sent to such a distance from each other that they never more see or know each other; for in the place of their abode they are changed in face, the face becoming the effigy of their internal affections. From this it is evident that in the spiritual world, all are conjoined according to internal affections and not according to external, unless these make one with the internal.


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