71. The reason why no others can be in love truly conjugial save those who receive it from the Lord, being those who approach Him directly and from Him live the life of the Church, is because, as shown above (no. 64), that love, regarded from its origin and correspondence, is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure, and clean, above every other love which is with the angels of heaven and with the men of the Church; and these its attributes cannot exist save with those who are conjoined with the Lord and by Him are consociated with angels of heaven; for such men shun extra-conjugial loves, which are conjunctions with others than their own partner, as injuries to the soul and as the stagnant pools of hell; and so far as partners shun such conjunctions even as to the lusts of the will and the intentions therefrom, so far that love is purified with them and successively becomes spiritual, first during their life on earth and afterwards in heaven. [2] Neither with men nor with angels can any love ever become pure. So also with this love. But since it is the intention which is of the will that is primarily regarded by the Lord, therefore, so far as a man is in this intention and perseveres therein, so far he is initiated into the purity and holiness of this love and successively progresses therein. That no others can be in spiritual conjugial love save those who from the Lord are of this character, is because in that love is heaven, and the natural man, with whom the love derives its pleasure solely from the flesh, cannot draw near to heaven or to any angel, nay, and not to any man in whom this love is; for it is the fundamental of all celestial and spiritual loves; see above (nos. 65-7).
[3] That such is the case has been proved to me by experience. In the spiritual world, I have seen genii who were being prepared for hell approach an angel who was in delight with his consort. At a distance, as they were approaching, they became like furies and sought for caves and ditches as places of refuge into which they might cast themselves. That evil spirits love what is homogeneous with their affection, howsoever unclean it is, and hold in aversion the spirits of heaven as heterogeneous to their affections, heaven being pure, may be concluded from what is told in the Preliminaries, no. 10.
