This is evident from what has already been said about marriage and celibacy. The reasons why the married state is preferable are: that the married state exists from creation; that its source is the marriage of good and truth; that it corresponds to the Lord's marriage with the church; that the church and conjugial love are constant companions; that its purpose is higher than that of all else in creation, since it is the propagation in due order of the human race, and also of the heaven of angels, since this comes from the human race. A further consideration is that marriage is a person's fulfilment, since it makes a person fully a person, as will be proved in the next chapter. All these reasons are lacking in the case of celibacy.

[2] If, however, we suppose that the celibate state is superior to the married state, and this supposition is subjected to enquiry to enable it to be affirmed and established by proofs, the consequences are as follows. Marriages are not holy and cannot be chaste; in fact chastity is impossible in the female sex, except for those who abstain from marriage and take a vow of perpetual virginity. Moreover, it is those who have taken a vow of perpetual celibacy who are meant by 'eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of God's kingdom' (Matt. 19:12). There are many other untrue consequences which follow from such an untrue supposition. 'Eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of God's kingdom' means spiritual eunuchs, those who in the married state refrain from the evils of promiscuity. It is evident that Italian castrati are not meant.

* * * * *

151bis* I shall add here two accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

When I was going home from the contest of wisdom (described above in 132), I saw on the way an angel dressed in blue. He came and walked beside me, and said: 'I see that you have come away from the contest of wisdom, and that you took great pleasure in what you heard there. But I perceive that you are not fully in this world, because you are at the same time in the natural world, so you do not know about our Olympic sports. At these the wise men of antiquity meet, and learn from newcomers from your world what changes of state and what vicissitudes wisdom has up to the present undergone and is still undergoing. If you like, I will take you to the place where many of the wise men of antiquity live together with their sons, that is, their disciples'.

So he took me to a place on the border between the north and the east, and when I had a view in that direction from a piece of high ground, I caught sight of a city with two hills at one side, the one nearer the city being the lower of the two. 'This city,' he told me, 'is called Athenaeum, the lower hill is called Parnassium, the higher Heliconeum. They bear these names because in the city and its neighbourhood the wise men of ancient Greece live, men such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus and Xenophon,** with their disciples and recruits.'

I asked about Plato and Aristotle. He told me that they and their followers were in a different region, because they had taught about reasoning, purely intellectual matters, but the others about moral issues relevant to the conduct of life.

[2] He said that scholars from the city of Athenaeum were frequently sent on embassies to the educated Christians of the day, to report what they thought about God, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the condition of man as compared with that of animals, and other matters which belong to inner wisdom. He told me that the crier had announced a meeting for that day, a sign that their emissaries had met some newcomers from the earth and heard some interesting news.

We saw a lot of people coming out of the city and its neighbourhood, some of them with laurel-wreaths on the heads, some holding palm-fronds in their hands, some with books under their arms, and some with pens tucked under the hair of the left temple. We joined them and went up together, and found on the hill an octagonal palace, which they called the Palladium. When we went in, we found eight hexagonal recesses, in each of which there was a bookcase, as well as a table, at which those who wore laurels sat down. In the Palladium proper we saw seats carved out of stone, on which the remainder seated themselves.

[3] Then a door on the left was opened, and by it two newcomers from the earth were brought in. When they had been welcomed, one of those wearing laurels asked them, 'What news is there from earth?'

'The news,' they said, 'is that in forests men have been found resembling animals, or animals resembling men. It was recognised from their faces and bodies that they had been born men, but that at the age of two or three they had been lost or abandoned in the forests. It was said that these creatures could not voice any of their thoughts, nor learn how to make articulate sounds so as to utter words. Neither did they know what food was fit for them, as animals do, but they put in their mouths what grew in the forest whether clean or dirty, and much more of the same kind. From these facts some of our learned men made many guesses and some drew many deductions about the condition of men as compared with that of animals.'

[4] On hearing this some of the wise men of antiquity asked, 'What were their guesses and deductions from these facts?' The newcomers replied that there was a great deal, but it could be reduced to the following:

(a) Man by his nature and also from birth is more stupid and so more vile than any animal, and if not taught becomes like one. (b) He can be taught because he has learnt to make articulate sounds, and so to talk; and by this means he has begun to express his thoughts; and by degrees he has done so more and more, until he could frame the laws of living together, many of which, however, have been imprinted on animals from birth. (c) Animals equally with men are capable of reasoning. (d) If therefore animals could talk, they would reason as cleverly on all subjects as men. A proof of this is that they think from reason and prudence just as much as men. (e) The intellect is merely a modification of sunlight with the co-operation of heat by means of the ether, so that it is simply an activity of a more inward nature. This activity can be raised to such a height that it looks like wisdom. (f) It is therefore useless to believe that man lives after death any more than an animal does, except that perhaps for a few days after death an exhalation of the life of the body may appear as a cloud in the form of a ghost, before being dispersed into nature. This is very much as when a twig picked out of the ashes of a fire may appear to retain the likeness of its shape. (g) Consequently religion, which teaches that life continues after death, is an invention so that the simple may be kept inwardly obedient by its laws, just as they are kept outwardly obedient by the civil law.

They added that these were the reasonings of those who were only clever, not intelligent. 'What do the intelligent think?' they asked. The reply was that they had not heard, but they were of the opinion that they thought the same. * The numbers 151-156 are used twice in the first edition; the sections following 156 are here numbered 151bis-156bis. ** Greek philosophers of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries B.C.

152bis On hearing this all who were sitting at the tables said: 'What times they live in on earth now! What sad changes has wisdom undergone! It seems to have been turned into foolish cleverness. The sun has set and is beneath the earth, diametrically opposite its noon position. How can anyone fail to know from the evidence of the people abandoned in the forests, that this is what man is like if he receives no instruction? Surely he is what he is taught to be. By birth he is more ignorant than animals. He must then learn to walk and to talk. If he did not learn to walk, would he stand upright on his feet? And if he did not learn to talk, would he be able to utter any of his thoughts? Surely everyone is what he is taught to be, crazy if taught falsities, wise if taught truths? And if he is crazy from being taught falsities, does he not imagine himself to be wiser than the man who is wise from being taught truths? Are there not foolish and deranged people who are no more human beings than those who were found in the forests? Are not those who have lost their memory like them?

[2] 'From both these sets of facts we draw the conclusion that a man is not a man without instruction, and is not an animal either, but he is a form capable of receiving in himself what makes a man human, so that he is not born a man, but becomes one. Man has by birth a form such that he can be an instrument for the reception of life from God, with a view to being a subject into which God can put all good, and by union with Himself make blessed for ever. We perceive from what you say that wisdom at the present time is so far extinct or turned to foolishness, that there is total ignorance about the terms upon which human being live as compared with those on which animals live. As a result, they do not know either anything about how a person lives after death. But those who are able, but unwilling, to know about this, and so deny its reality, as many of you Christians do, can be likened to the people found in the forests. It is not that they have become so stupid through being deprived of instruction, but they have made themselves stupid by relying on the fallacies of the senses, which are the darkness that conceals truths.'

153bis But then someone standing in the middle of the Palladium and holding a palm-frond in his hand said: 'Please unravel this mystery. How could a man having been created a form of God be changed into the form of a devil? I am well aware that the angels of heaven are forms of God, and the angels of hell are forms of the devil, and that these two are completely opposite forms, one of madness, the other of wisdom. Tell me, then, how could man created as a form of God pass from daylight into such a night as to be able to deny the existence of God and everlasting life?'

[2] The teachers replied one after the other, first the Pythagoreans, then the Socratics, and afterwards the rest. But among them there was a certain follower of Plato, who was the last to speak. His opinion, which was adopted, went like this. The people of the age of Saturn, the golden age, knew and acknowledged that they were forms for the reception of life from God, and consequently they had wisdom written on their souls and their hearts, so that they saw truth by the light of truth, and truths enabled them to perceive good by the pleasure of its love. 'But,' he said, 'as in the following periods the human race retreated from the acknowledgment that all the truths of wisdom and thus all the good of love they had was continually flowing in from God, they ceased to be dwelling-places of God, and then too they stopped talking with God and mixing with angels. For the interiors of their minds were diverted from their previous direction, which was being raised upwards by God towards God, and they were turned further and further aside, outwards towards the world, and so directed by God to God by way of the world. Finally they were turned in the opposite direction, which is downwards towards oneself. Because a person who is inwardly turned upside down or away cannot look to God, people separated themselves from God and became forms of hell, and so of the devil.

[3] 'It follows from this that in the earliest ages people acknowledged with heart and soul that all the good of love, and so all the truth of wisdom, came to them from God, and also that this good and truth were God's in them, so that they were purely receivers of life from God; which is why they were called images of God, sons of God and born of God. But in the following ages people no longer acknowledged this with their heart and soul, but were influenced by some incorrect belief, later by historical faith and finally merely professing it with their lips. Acknowledging anything of this kind merely by professing it with the lips is not acknowledging it, but is in fact denying it at heart.

'These facts enable us to see what wisdom is like on earth among present-day Christians. They can still be inspired by God as the result of a written revelation, while not being aware of the difference between man and an animal. Thus many people believe that if a man lives after death, so too must an animal; or because an animal does not live after death, neither can man. Surely our spiritual light, which enlightens our mental vision, is in their case turned to thick darkness; and their natural light, which only enlightens the bodily vision, has become dazzling light to them?'

154bis After this speech all turned to the two newcomers and thanked them for coming and bringing them their report; and they begged them to carry back to their brethren a report of what they had heard. The newcomers replied that they would strengthen their people in their belief in this truth, that in so far as they attribute all the good of charity and all the truth of faith to the Lord and not to themselves, so far are they human beings and so far do they become angels of heaven.

155bis The second experience.

One morning I was woken up by the sweetest singing, heard coming from some height above me. So in the earliest moments of waking, a period which is inward, peaceful and sweet compared with the rest of the day, I could for some while remain in the spirit as if outside the body, and give the most detailed attention to the affection expressed by the singing. Singing in heaven is simply a mental affection which is expressed through the mouth as a modulation of sound, since it is the sound, distinct from the speaker's words, coming from the affection of his love which gives life to speech. In that state I perceived that it was the affection for the delights of conjugial love, which wives in heaven had made into a song. I could tell this was so by the sound of the singing, in which those varied delights were reproduced in wonderful ways.

After this I got up, and looked out into the spiritual world, and saw to the east what looked like golden rain below the sun there. It was morning dew falling so densely that it seemed to my view like golden rain as it caught the rays of the sun. This made me still more fully awake, so I went out in spirit and asked an angel whom I chanced to meet whether he had seen the golden rain falling from the sun.

[2] 'Yes,' he answered, 'I see it every time I meditate about conjugial love,' and then he turned his gaze in that direction. 'That rain,' he said, 'falls on a hall where three husbands live with their wives in the middle of the eastern park. The reason such rain is seen falling* from the sun over that hall is that there wisdom about conjugial love and its delights abides with them, about conjugial love with the husbands and about its delights with their wives. But I perceive that you are meditating about the delights of conjugial love, so I will take you to that hall and introduce you.'

He took me through park-land to some houses built of olive wood with two cedar columns in front of the door. He introduced me to the husbands, and asked if I might talk with their wives in their presence.

They agreed and summoned them. The wives looked piercingly at my eyes, so I asked, 'Why do you do that?'

'We can,' they said, 'see exactly what is your inclination and so affection, and thus what you are thinking about sexual love. We see you are meditating deeply but chastely about it. What,' they asked, 'do you want us to tell you about it?'

'Please be so good,' I answered, 'as to tell me something about the delights of conjugial love.' Their husbands agreed and said, 'Yes, you can reveal something about that if you like; they have chaste ears.'

[3] 'Who was it,' they asked, 'told you to question us about the delights of that love? Why not our husbands?' 'This angel with me,' I replied, 'whispered in my ear that it is wives who receive and feel those delights, since they are born to be loves, and all delights belong to love.'

They replied to this with a smile, 'Be careful, and don't say anything like that, except with ambiguous meaning, because we women have wisdom deeply stored in our hearts, and we do not disclose it to any husband unless he enjoys truly conjugial love. There are many reasons for this, which we keep hidden away.'

'Our wives,' said the husbands, 'know every state of our minds, and nothing escapes their notice. They see, perceive and feel anything that proceeds from our will, but we in turn perceive nothing in our wives. Wives have this privilege, because they are very tender loves and as it were burning with zeal to preserve friendship and trust in marriage, and thus a happy life for both. They take care to maintain this for their husbands and themselves due to the wisdom inherent in their love, which is so full of prudence that they are unwilling and thus unable to say they love, but only that they are loved.'

'Why,' I asked, 'are they unwilling and thus unable?' They replied that if the slightest hint of this escaped their lips, a chill would grip their husbands, and banish them from their bed, their bedroom and their sight. 'But this,' they said, 'happens to those who do not regard marriage as holy, and therefore do not love their wives with spiritual love. It is different in the case of those who do; in their minds that love is spiritual and from this it becomes natural in the body. We in this hall enjoy natural love arising from spiritual, so we entrust our husbands with our secrets about the delights of conjugial love.'

[4] Then I pressed them strongly to reveal some of these secrets to me too. At once they started looking towards the window facing the south, where we saw a shining white dove, with its wings glistening as if of silver and its head decorated with a crest as if of gold, standing on a branch from which sprang an olive. When the dove tried to stretch its wings, the wives said, 'We will reveal something; when that dove appears, it is a sign that we may.'

'Every man,' they said, 'has five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But we also have a sixth, which allows us to feel all the delights of our husband's conjugial love. We have this feeling in the palms of our hands, when we touch our husbands' chests, arms, hands or cheeks, but particularly their chests. We also feel it when they touch us. All the happiness and charm of the thoughts in their minds, and all the joys and pleasures in their consciousness, and the amusement and cheerfulness in their chests are passed from them to us and take a form, becoming perceptible, capable of being felt and touched. We can tell them apart as accurately and exactly as the ear can tell apart the notes of a song, or the tongue the tastes of delicacies. In short, our husbands' spiritual pleasures put on a kind of natural embodiment in us. Our husbands therefore call us the sense organs of chaste conjugial love, and so of its delights. This sense our sex has comes into and remains in existence, continues and grows the more our husbands love us for wisdom and judgment, and we in turn love them for the same qualities in them. This sense our sex has is called in the heavens the sport of wisdom with its love and of love with its wisdom.'

[5] These remarks filled me with a longing to ask many more questions, for instance, about the various kinds of delights. 'The variety is endless,' they said, 'but we do not wish to say more, and so we cannot, because the dove in our window has flown off with the olive branch in its claws.' I waited for it to come back, but in vain. Meanwhile I asked the husbands, 'Do you not have a similar sense of conjugial love?' 'We have,' they replied, 'a general sense, but not a particular one. We feel a general blessedness, pleasure and charm arising from the particular ones our wives feel. This general feeling we get from them is like the tranquillity of peace.'

When they had said this, we saw through the window a swan standing on the branch of a fig-tree; it unfolded its wings and flew away. On seeing this the husbands said, 'This is our sign to keep quiet about conjugial love. Come back again from time to time, and perhaps more will be revealed.' So they turned away, and we left. * Reading cadens for cadentis.

156bis CHAPTER VIII

THE LINKING OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE, WHICH IS WHAT IS MEANT BY THE LORD'S WORDS: 'THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO, BUT ONE FLESH'

It is evident from Genesis and also from the Lord's words that from creation men and women are endowed with an inclination and also the ability to be linked as it were into one; and both of these are still present in men and women. We read in the Book of Creation called Genesis:

Jehovah God built the rib which he had taken from the man to make a woman, and brought her to the man. And the man said, As things are now this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Her name shall be Ishshah, because she was taken from Ish.* For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Gen. 2:22-24.

The Lord as reported by Matthew said much the same:

Have you not read that he who from the beginning made male and female said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh; therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. Matt. 19:4, 5.

[2] It is plain from these words that woman was created out of man, and both of them have an inclination and ability to be reunited into one. This means into one human being, as is plain from Genesis, where each are together called man. For it says:

On the day when God created man, he created them male and female, and called their name man. Gen. 5:1, 2.

We read there: 'He called their name Adam,' but 'Adam' and 'man' are the same word in Hebrew. Moreover, each is also called man (Gen. 1:27; 3:22-24). 'One flesh' also means one human being, as is plain from passages in the Word where the expression 'all flesh' is used to mean every human being (e.g. Gen. 6:12, 13, 17, 19; Isa. 40:5, 6; 49:26; 66:16, 23, 24; Jer. 25:31; 32:27; 45:5; Ezek. 20:48; 21:4, 5; and elsewhere).

[3] However, I have shown in ARCANA CAELESTIA, which explains the spiritual sense of the two books of Genesis and Exodus, what is the meaning of 'the man's rib' which was built to make a woman, of 'the flesh' which was closed up in its place, and so of 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh', of 'father and mother' whom a man is to leave on getting married, and of 'clinging to his wife.' It was proved there that 'rib' does not mean rib, 'flesh' does not mean flesh, 'bone' does not mean bone, and 'cling' does not mean cling; but the spiritual things are meant which correspond to them and are therefore expressed in this way. It is plain that they mean spiritual things which turn two people into a single person, from the fact that it is conjugial love which links them, and that is a spiritual love. I have said several times above that the man's love of wisdom is copied into the wife; and a fuller proof of this will be given in the following chapters. I cannot at this point digress and depart from the subject here under discussion, which is the linking of a married couple to become one flesh by the union of their souls and minds. This union will be expounded in the following order:

(i) From creation each sex is endowed with the ability and inclination to be linked as it were into one. (ii) Conjugial love links two souls and so two minds into one. (iii) A wife's will links itself to a man's intellect, and so his intellect links itself to his wife's will. (iv) The inclination to be united with a man is constant and permanent in the case of a wife, but inconstant and fluctuating in the case of a man. (v) The linking is inspired in a man by his wife in proportion to her love; and it is received by the man in proportion to his wisdom. (vi) That linking takes place by stages from the first days of a marriage, and in the case of those who enjoy truly conjugial love it becomes deeper and deeper for ever. (vii) The linking of a wife to her husband's rational wisdom takes place from within, but to his moral wisdom from outside. (viii) In order to effect that linking a wife is given the ability to perceive her husband's affections and to guide them with extreme caution. (ix) Wives hide this power of perceiving away in themselves, and conceal it from their husbands for very necessary reasons, so that conjugial love, friendship, trust and so the blessings of living together and a happy life may be firmly established. (x) This power of perception is the wife's wisdom; it cannot exist in a man, nor can the man's rational wisdom exist in the wife. (xi) A wife is constantly led by love to think about her husband's inclination towards herself, with the intention of linking him to herself; but it is different for a man. (xii) A wife links herself to her husband by paying attention to the desires of his will. (xiii) A wife is linked to her husband by the sphere of life which issues from her love for him. (xiv) A wife is linked to her husband by making her own the powers of his manliness; but this is dependent upon their spiritual love for each other. (xv) The wife thus receives in herself an image of her husband, and consequently perceives, sees and feels his affections. (xvi) A man has his own duties and a wife has hers; a wife cannot be involved in her husband's duties, nor a man in his wife's, and perform them properly. (xvii) These duties also link the two into one as they help each other; and together they make a single household. (xviii) As they are linked in the ways that have been stated couples become more and more one person. (xix) Those who enjoy truly conjugial love feel themselves a united person and like one flesh. (xx) Truly conjugial love regarded in essence is a union of souls, a linking of minds, and an effort to be linked in chest and so in body. (xxi) The states of this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, intimate friendship, full trust and a desire shared by the disposition and heart of each to do the other all the good they can. All these things give rise to blessedness, bliss, joy and pleasure, and by their everlasting enjoyment heavenly happiness. (xxii) There is no way that these can exist except in the marriage of one man with one wife.

An explanation of these points now follows. * Hebrew 'ishshah 'woman', 'ish 'man'.