54. To what has been related thus far respecting the state of married partners after death should be added the following: 1. All married partners who are merely natural are separated after death, for the reason that with them the love of marriage grows cold, and the love of adultery warm. Yet, after separation they sometimes consociate as married partners with others, but after a short time they mutually separate. Frequently this is done again and again, until at last the man is given up to some harlot and the woman to some adulterer. This takes place in an infernal prison where promiscuous whoredom is forbidden to both under penalty; respecting this, see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, no. 153. 2. Married partners, one of whom is spiritual and the other natural, are also separated after death, and to the spiritual is given a suitable partner; but the natural is relegated to his or her like, in places of lasciviousness. 3. Those who in the world have lived unmarried and have wholly estranged their minds from marriage, if they are spiritual, remain single, but if natural, become whoremongers. It is different with those who, in their single state, have desired marriage, and still more with those who have solicited it without success. For them, if they are spiritual, blessed marriages are provided, though not until they are in heaven. 4. Those, both virgins and men, who in the world have been shut up in monasteries, at the conclusion of their monastic life, which continues for some time after death, are set free and discharged. They then enjoy the longed-for liberty of their desires, as to whether they wish to live a conjugial life or not. If they desire a conjugial life, they obtain it; if not, they are conveyed to those who live in celibacy at the side of heaven; but those who have burned with forbidden lust are cast down. 5. The reason why celibates are at the side of heaven is because the sphere of perpetual celibacy infests the sphere of conjugial love, which is the sphere of heaven. That the sphere of conjugial love is the sphere of heaven, is because it descends from the heavenly marriage of the Lord and the Church.