We probably all have a general idea of what affections are. Still, it's helpful to focus on them directly, to develop an understanding of the role they play in our spiritual development.

An affection is a response to something that affects you, that has a mental and spiritual effect on you. Each one of us has a whole unique collection of affections that makes us what we are. The stronger ones of these we can call loves. I can say that I love my grandchildren, and when I think of each one, it affects me in a different way. I also have an affection for strawberries, but the ranking of that affection is far lower than an affection for a grandchild! What is inmost in a person, the mind or spirit that will live onward in the spiritual world, is this collection of loves.

This love can be thought of as a tree, a single thing, but one with many branches and very many small twigs at the ends. All these twigs may be thought of as affections, or "continuations of love" (Arcana Coelestia 3938), the love that is the complete tree. Each affection, or twig, is singular and different, but they are all connected to form the tree. (When trees are mentioned in the Word, some general human characterization or type of love is what is represented. See Judges, 9:7-20.)

Affections can be attached to physical things or mental ones, but the affection itself is spiritual. You can have affection for a piece of furniture, because it is well proportioned and beautiful, or because you built it yourself, or because it belonged to your grandmother and the bottom drawer was where she kept special toys for you. On a higher plane you can have an affection for truth. When you hear something or read something that clicks in your mind and makes you see clearly something that you had been wondering about, you have a feeling of delight because now you understand. But regardless of the plane they are on you can see that everyone has countless affections of all sorts, and if you contemplate your own you can see that you, the real you, is the total of all them, but that some are more powerful than others, more important to you.

We all usually have evil affections as well as good. We can want revenge on people who have hurt us, we can want more things just to have them, we can want our own way regardless of who we hurt. If we think about our affections and which ones are more powerful than others we can be warned about who we are and so have motivation to change for the better.

One of the things that makes human beings somewhat unique is that we can try to change our natures. We start out with a mixture of affections - some evil, and some good. If we're lucky, our parents and friends help to encourage the good ones, and quash the bad ones. As we mature, we start to take responsibility, and make more of our own choices. We can see things in ourselves that we don't like, and try to build habits that lead away from the destructive loves, and towards good ones.

If our own blend of affections is primarily steered by loving the Lord, and loving our neighbor, we're on the road to heaven. If it's primarily steered by a love of ourselves, we're not on a good road, and we need to change direction.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 1016 [3], 1895, 2363)

3938. 'And Leah said, In my blessedness! for the daughters will call me blessed' in the highest sense means eternity, in the internal sense the happiness of eternal life, in the external sense the delight that belongs to the affections. This is clear from the meaning of 'blessedness', and from the meaning of 'the daughters will bless me'. That 'blessedness' in the highest sense means eternity cannot be seen except from its correspondence with the things which exist with man, for the mind cannot have any grasp of things that are Divine or infinite except through those that are finite, of which man is able to have mental images. Without mental images formed from finite things, and especially images formed from things that exist within space and time, man cannot begin to comprehend Divine things, let alone the Infinite. Without mental images formed from space and time man is not even capable of thinking anything, 3404, for as to the body, and so as to thoughts which are formed from external sensory impressions, he dwells within the confines of time. But angels, since they are not bounded by time or space, have mental images formed from states of being. This is why spatial or temporal references in the Word mean states, see 1274, 1382, 2625, 2788, 2837, 3254, 3356, 3827.

[2] But there are two states - a state which corresponds to space and a state which corresponds to time. The state which corresponds to space is a state in regard to being, while the state which corresponds to time is a state in regard to manifestation, 2625. There are two entities which constitute man, namely being (esse) and manifestation (existere). Man's being is nothing else than a recipient of the eternal which proceeds from the Lord. Indeed men, spirits, or angels are nothing else than recipients - that is, recipient forms - of life from the Lord. The actual reception of life is what the term manifestation refers to. Man imagines that he has being, and indeed that he is self-existent, when in fact he is not a self-existent being but, as has been stated, one who manifests being. Self-existent BEING occurs solely in the Lord, and that BEING is called JEHOVAH. This BEING which is JEHOVAH is the source from which all things that seem to be self-existent derive their being. But the Lord's or Jehovah's actual BEING cannot possibly be imparted to any, except to the Lord's Human. This Human was made the Divine Being, that is, it was made Jehovah. On the point that the Lord is Jehovah as to both Essences, see 1736, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2156, 2329, 2921, 3023, 3035.

[3] Manifestation too is used of the Lord, but only of the time when He was in the world and there assumed the Divine Being. But ever since He was made the Divine Being the term Manifestation could no longer be used of Him except to refer to whatever proceeds from Him. That which proceeds from Him seems like a Manifestation within Him, but it is not. Rather it is that which goes forth from Him and causes men, spirits, and angels to be forms manifesting His Being, that is, to have life. In so manifesting His Being man, spirit, or angel has life, and the life he has is eternal happiness. The happiness of eternal life is what eternity, the source of which is the Lord's Divine Being, corresponds to in the highest sense. The fact that the happiness of eternal life is what is meant in the internal sense by 'blessedness' is evident from this, as also is the fact that the delight which belongs to the affections is meant in the external sense, and so is evident without explanation.

[4] But it is the delight belonging to the affections for truth and good, a delight which corresponds to the happiness of eternal life, that is meant. All affections have their own delights, but the nature of the affections determines that of the delights. The affections for evil and falsity have their own delights as well, and before a person is regenerated and receives from the Lord the affections for truth and good those delights seem to be the only delights, so much so that people believe that no other delights are possible, and consequently that if these were taken away from them they would perish completely. But people who do receive from the Lord the delights which belong to the affections for truth and good gradually see and perceive the true nature of the delights of that life which they had believed to be the only possible delights - that they are by comparison worthless, indeed foul. But the more he enters into the delights that belong to the affections for truth and good the more a person begins to despise those delights in evil and falsity, and at length to loathe them.

[5] I have on occasions spoken to spirits in the next life whose delights have been those of evil and falsity, and I have been allowed to tell them that they do not have life until these delights are taken away from them. But as with people like them in the world those spirits have said that if they were deprived of such delights they would no longer have any life at all. I have been allowed to reply however that that is just when that life begins, and with that life happiness such as exists in heaven, which compared with any other happiness defies description. But this they have been unable to grasp because of unbelief in anything which they do not actually know. They are like all those in the world who are governed by self-love and love of the world and who do not therefore have any charity. They know the delight that belongs to self-love and love of the world, but not the delight that belongs to charity. Consequently they have no knowledge at all of what charity is, and have less idea still of any delight residing within charity, when in fact the delight belonging to charity is the delight which fills the whole of heaven and is the producer of the blessedness and happiness there. And if you are willing to believe it, it is also the producer of intelligence and wisdom together with the delights that go with them, for the Lord enters with the light of truth and with the flame of good, and therefore with intelligence and wisdom, into the delights belonging to charity. But falsities and evils reject, stifle, and pervert those delights, and thereby cause stupidity and madness. These considerations show the identity and the nature of the delight which belongs to the affections and corresponds to the happiness of eternal life.

[6] People of the present day and age imagine that if only a person has the confidence received through faith even in his final hour before death, then regardless of whatever affection has been pre-eminent throughout the whole course of his life, he can enter heaven. I have on occasions spoken to spirits who have lived and believed as these people do. When they enter the next life they at first think of nothing else than of being able to enter heaven, irrespective of their previous life, that is to say, irrespective of the fact that by means of that life they have acquired the delight that belongs to the affection for evil and falsity arising out of self-love and love of the world, which loves constituted the ends they had in view. I have been allowed to tell them that everyone is able to be admitted into heaven, for the Lord denies heaven to none. But whether they have the ability to live in that place they will be able to know if admitted. Some who were resolute in the belief were admitted. But because the life that belongs to love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour reigns in heaven, which life enters into the whole sphere of life and the happiness there, when they arrived they began to feel a pain, for they were unable to breathe in such a sphere and began to become aware of the foulness of their own affections, and so to suffer hellish torment. As a consequence they hurried away from there, saying that they wanted to get right away from it, amazed that heaven should be what to them was hell. This shows the essential nature of the two different delights, and that people whose delight has been that of the affection for evil and falsity cannot in any way be among those whose delight has been that belonging to the affection for good and truth, and that the two delights are opposites, like heaven and hell, see 537-539, 541, 547, 1397, 1398, 2130, 2401.

[7] Furthermore as regards the happiness of eternal life, no one who is moved by the affection for good and truth is able when he is living in the world to perceive that happiness, but only a certain delight instead. The reason why he is unable to do so is that he is confined to the body, and when confined in the body he is subject to worldly cares and as a consequence to anxieties. These prevent the happiness of eternal life, which is inwardly present in him, being manifested in any other way, for when that happiness passes from the inward parts of his being into cares and anxieties which reside in his outward parts, it sinks into the cares there and the anxieties, and becomes a kind of obscure delight. Nevertheless it is a delight that holds blessedness within it, and happiness within that. Being content in God constitutes such happiness. But once a person casts aside the body, and at the same time those worldly cares and anxieties, the happiness which has been so lying hidden in obscurity within his more internal man comes forward and reveals itself.

[8] As the term affection is used so often, let a definition of what that term means be given here. Affection is nothing else than love, yet it is an extension branching out of it. For the affection anyone has, whether for evil and falsity or for good and truth, stems from love. And as this love is present with and exists in every single part of a person it, is not perceived as love but is varied according to circumstances and according to the states, and the changes of these states, through which that person is passing. And this is unceasingly the case in everything he wills, thinks and does. This extension from love is what is called affection, and it is this extension which reigns in a person's life and which produces every delight residing with him. And in producing his every delight it produces his actual life, for a person's life is nothing else than the delight which belongs to his affection, and so is nothing else than the affection which belongs to his love. Love constitutes man's willing, and from this his thinking, and thereby his acting.