444. To the above shall be added the following Memorable Relation:
After I had finished my meditations on conjugial love and had commenced the meditations on scortatory love, suddenly two angels stood by me and said, "We perceived and understood what you were previously meditating on, but the things on which you are now meditating are beyond us and we do not perceive them. Lay them aside, for they amount to nothing." But I answered, "The love on which I am now meditating does not amount to nothing for it exists."
To this the angels said: "How can there be any love which is not from creation? Is not conjugial love thence? Is not this love a love between two who can become a one? How can there be a love which divides and separates? What young man loves any other maiden than the one who loves him in return? Will not the love of the one know and acknowledge the love of the other? and when they meet, Will they not join together of themselves? Who can love non-love? Is not conjugial love alone mutual and reciprocal? If not reciprocal, does not the love rebound and become nothing?"
[2] On hearing this, I asked the two angels from what society in heaven they were. They said: "We are from the heaven of innocence. We came into this heavenly world as infants and were brought up under the Lord's auspices; and when I became a young man and my wife who is here with me became a marriageable girl, we were betrothed and contracted and were joined in marriage. And because we have not known of any other love than love truly nuptial and conjugial, therefore, When the ideas of your thought concerning a strange love entirely opposite to our love were communicated to us, we did not comprehend anything. We have therefore descended to inquire of you why you are meditating on things imperceptible. Tell us, therefore, how can a love be possible which not only is not from creation but is also against creation. We regard things opposite to creation as objects of no reality."
[3] When he had said this, I was glad at heart that it was granted me to speak with angels of such innocence as to be entirely ignorant of what whoredom is. I therefore opened my mouth and taught them, saying: "Do you not know of the existence of good and evil? and that good is from creation, but not evil? Yet evil, regarded in itself, is not nothing although it is the nullity of good. Good is from creation, both good in its greatest degree and good in its least; and when this least becomes nothing, then from the other side arises evil. There is therefore no relation between them, nor any progression of good to evil, but only a relation and progression of good to greater and less good, and of evil to greater and less evil, the two being opposites at each and every point. And since good and evil are opposites, there is an intermediate between them wherein is an equilibrium in which evil acts against good; but because it does not prevail, it stops in the endeavor. Every man is brought up in this equilibrium. Being between good and evil or, what is the same thing, between heaven and hell, it is a spiritual equilibrium, and for those who are in it, it brings freedom. The Lord draws all men away from this equilibrium to Himself; and the man who from freedom follows Him, He leads from evil into good and so to heaven. It is the same with love, especially conjugial love and scortatory love, the latter being evil and the former good. Every man who hears the Lord's voice, and from freedom follows Him, is introduced by the Lord into conjugial love and into all its delights and bliss; but he who does not hear and follow, introduces himself into scortatory love--first into its delights, then into its undelights, and finally into its unhappiness."
[4] After I had spoken, the two angels asked: "How could evil come into existence when by creation nothing but good existed? If a thing is to exist, it must have an origin. Good could not be the origin of evil, for evil is the privation and destruction of good and therefore its nullity. Yet, since it is and is sensated, it is not nothing but something. Tell us, then, whence this something had its existence after being nothing." To this I replied: "This arcanum cannot be opened unless it be known that none is good save God alone, and that there is no good which in itself is good save from God. Therefore, he who looks to God and wills to be led by God is in good; but he who turns away from God and wills to be led by himself is not in good; for the good which he does is done either for the sake of himself or for the sake of the world, and so is meritorious or simulated or hypocritical. It is clear, therefore, that man himself is the origin of evil; not that this origin was planted in man from creation but, by turning away from God, he planted it in himself. This origin of evil was not [primitively] in Adam and his wife; but they made the origin of evil in themselves, and this because, when the serpent said, In the day that ye eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall be as God (Gen. 3:5), they turned away from God and turned to themselves as God. To eat of that tree signified to believe that one knows good and evil and is wise from himself and not from God."
[5] The two angels then asked, "How could man turn away from God and turn to himself, when yet he can think, will, and thence do nothing except from God? Why did God permit this?" I replied: "Man was so created that everything which he wills, thinks, and does appears to him as if in himself and thus from himself. Without this appearance, man would not be a man for he could not receive, retain, and, as it were, appropriate to himself anything of good and truth or of love and wisdom. From this it follows that without this appearance--a living appearance, as it were--man would have no conjunction with God, nor any eternal life therefrom. But if from this appearance he induces on himself the belief that he wills, thinks, and hence does good from himself and not from the Lord, though in all appearance as from himself, he then turns good with him into evil, and thus makes in himself the origin of evil. [6] This was Adam's sin. But I will open up this subject somewhat more clearly. The Lord looks at every man in his forehead, and this look passes into his occiput. Under the forehead is the cerebrum, and under the occiput is the cerebellum, the latter being dedicated to love and its goods, and the former to wisdom and its truths. Therefore, he who looks with his face to the Lord receives wisdom from Him, and through wisdom, love; but he who looks backwards away from the Lord receives love and not wisdom, and love without Wisdom is love from man and not from the Lord. This love, because it conjoins itself with falsities, does not acknowledge God but acknowledges itself as God, and it tacitly confirms this acknowledgment by the faculty, implanted in man from creation, of being wise as if from himself. This love, therefore, is the origin of evil. That such is the case can be demonstrated to the sight. I will call hither some evil spirit who turns himself away from God, and will speak to him from behind, that is, into his occiput, and you will see that the words spoken will be turned into their opposites."
[7] I then called one such spirit. He was at hand, and I spoke to him from behind, saying, "Do you know anything about hell, damnation, and the torment there?" and then, when he turned round to me, I asked him, "What did you hear?" He answered, "I heard this, Do you know anything about heaven, salvation, and the happiness there." Then, When the latter words were spoken to him behind his back, he said that he had heard the former. After this, the following words were said to him behind his back, "Do you not know that those who are in hell are insane from falsities?" and when asked about them by me, as to what he had heard, he said, "I heard, Do you not know that those Who are in heaven are wise from truths?" and when these latter Words were said to him behind his back, he said that he had heard, "Do you not know that those who are in hell are insane from falsities?" And so on. "From this, it is clearly evident that when the mind turns away from the Lord, it turns to itself and then perceives things contrary. This is the reason why in this spiritual World, as you know, it is not allowed any one to stand behind another and speak to him, for then a love is inspired into him which, because of its delight, his self-intelligence favors and obeys, but which, being from man and not from God, is a love of evil or a love of falsity. [8] Besides this, I will tell you something else of a similar nature, namely, that I have sometimes heard goods and truths let down from heaven into hell, and there they Were progressively turned into their opposites, good into evil and truth into falsity. This is due to the same cause, namely, because all who are in hell turn themselves away from the Lord."
After hearing this, the two angels thanked me and said, "Since you are now meditating and writing on a love opposite to our conjugial love, and the opposite to that love saddens our minds, we will depart"; and when they said, "Peace be to you"' I begged them not to tell anything about this love to their brother and sisters in heaven because it would hurt their innocence.
That those who die as infants grow up in heaven, and when they attain to the stature of young men in the world, of eighteen years, and of maidens of fifteen, they remain at that age; that marriages are then provided for them by the Lord; and that both before marriage and after it they are entirely ignorant of what whoredom is, or that it is possible--this I can asseverate with certainty.
444a. FORNICATION
By fornication is meant the lust of a youth or young man before marriage, with a woman, a harlot. Lust with a woman not a harlot, that is, with a virgin or with the wife of another, is not fornication; With a virgin, it is stupration, and with the wife of another it is adultery. In what way these two differ from fornication cannot be seen by any rational man unless he looks at love of the sex in its degrees and diversities, seeing, on the one side its chaste things, and on the other its unchaste; and unless on both sides he distributes them into genera and species and thus makes distinctions. Otherwise the distinction between the more chaste and the less, and the more unchaste and the less, cannot stand out in a man's idea. Without these distinctions, all relation between them is lost, and with this, all clear- sightedness in matters of judgment. The understanding is then involved in such shade that it does not know how to distinguish fornication from adultery, and still less the mild kinds of fornication, and likewise of adultery, from the grievous. Thus it mixes evils together, making from diverse evils one pottage, and from diverse goods one paste. In order, therefore, that love of the sex may be known distinctly, as to that side of it on which it inclines and progresses to scortatory love entirely opposite to conjugial love, it is expedient that its beginning which is fornication be examined. This shall be done in the following series:
I. That fornication belongs to love of the sex.
II. That this love commences when a youth begins to think and act from his own understanding, and his speaking voice begins to become masculine.
III. That fornication belongs to the natural man.
IV. That fornication is a lust, but not the lust of adultery.
V. That with some men, love of the sex cannot without harmful results be totally restrained from going forth into fornication.
VI. That therefore, in populous cities brothels are tolerated.
VII. That the lust of fornicating is light so far as it looks to conjugial love and prefers it.
VIII. That the lust of fornicating is grievous so far as it looks to adultery.
IX. That the lust of fornicating is more grievous as it verges to the cupidity of varieties and the cupidity of defloration.
X. That the sphere of the lust of fornicating, as it is in its beginning, is mediate between the sphere of scortatory love and the sphere of conjugial love, and makes an equilibrium.
XI. That care must be taken that conjugial love be not destroyed by inordinate and immoderate fornications.
XII. Because the conjugial of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian religion.
XIII. That with those who for various reasons cannot yet enter into marriage, and because of salacity cannot restrain their lusts, this conjugial can be preserved if the roaming love of the sex become restricted to one mistress.
XIV. That pellicacy is preferable to roaming lust provided it be not contracted with many, nor with a virgin or undeflowered woman, nor with a married woman; and provided it be kept separate from conjugial love.
The explanation of the above now follows:
