Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 439

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439. XIV. THAT EACH SPHERE CARRIES WITH IT DELIGHTS, that is to say, each sphere--that of scortatory love which ascends from hell, and that of conjugial love which descends from heaven--affects with its delights the man who receives it. The reason is because the ultimate plane is the same, the plane namely, wherein the delights of each love terminate, where also they are fulfilled and completed, and which makes their presence manifest by its sensation of them. Hence it is, that in outmost manifestation, scortatory embraces and conjugial embraces are perceived as being alike, although inwardly they are wholly unlike. That they are therefore unlike in their outmost manifestation cannot be judged from any sensation of the difference, for no others can sensate dissimilitudes from differences in outmosts save those who are in love truly conjugial. Evil is recognized from good but not good from evil, as neither is a sweet odor perceived by nostrils to which a foul odor is clinging. I have heard from angels that they distinguish the lascivious from the non-lascivious in outmosts, as one distinguishes a fire from dung, or burning horn with its offensive smell, from a fire of spice or of burning cinnamon-wood with its fragrant odor; and that this is due to the distinction between the internal delights which enter into the external and compose them.


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