3946. Concerning which and the causes when I spoke with spirits [I learned that] the causes were three of love's existing in such a gross and lumpish form; namely, [first] that conjugial love is nauseated by them, which being represented excited loathing, since the idea of adulterers concerning marriage or conjugial love is such, that they detest wives and women, [whence] it follows that when love is thought of such a result takes place. As mutual love also is wholly wanting, and hatred [on the other hand] reigns with all evil spirits, it follows that hatred is a [second] cause of the gross idea concerning love as lump-like. The third is, that everyone persuades himself that life is his own; since [he regards] his thought, the most subtle of all things, [as his own], thus also his life; whence it flows that as often as that is thought of there occurs, as it were, a subtle light, and the life of the angels that are seen, and [their] love, which is [really] their life, are as gross ideas with them, when yet the fact is quite the contrary, love being the most pure, most holy, and most distinct life of all, and contrary loves being not of life, but a something most dense, most gross, and confused, so as to be almost nothing.