Water is the basis of life, the essential ingredient in all drinks, and in the form of rivers, lakes and oceans supports life in myriad ways. The spiritual meaning of water is similarly basic: It represents truth in general, the ideas and concepts that guide us to do good things in our lives. In a more specific sense, it represents truth at its simplest level: the ideas we learn from the Bible and simply believe. Swedenborg refers to this as “natural” truth or “truths of faith.” They are not things we have explored, figured out or confirmed through life; rather they are things that we accept to be true because we’ve been told they are true. Like water, these ideas flow to us from other sources. And like water, they are ever-changing; to build something permanent we might look to the more permanent ideas represented by stones. But water is crucial to life, and so are these accepted ideas. Water can also, of course, be threatening. Rivers, lakes and oceans are inherently dangerous, and flooding was an ever greater threat in Biblical times than it is now. These aspects represent the opposite meaning – water as falsity, twisted ideas which support evil and can overwhelm and destroy us if we’re not careful.

47. Their lot in the other life is this. At first they take several wives as well as concubines there as they did in the world, but because in the spiritual world there is conjunction of minds, and those who disagree in mind cannot remain together, but they separate of their own accord, and eventually they mate with a woman of similar mind, thus by degrees they separate from their wives, and finally are united with one, with whom their mind agrees. Moreover, those who persist in polygamy in course of time become so weak and impotent that they become disgusted with marriage, for this is the effect of lasciviousness.