This can, of course, be a wonderful thing: It is essential for our journey to heaven, and is the reason for the holiness of marriage. But when the men represent falsity it can also be horrendously twisted, as in the attempted homosexual rape in Sodom (Genesis 19) and the rape of the concubine in Gibeah (Judges 19). In a general sense, men represent things of the intellect -- facts, ideas, knowledge, everything from the deepest truths to the most pernicious falsities about life and the Lord. Women in general represents things of affection -- desire, passion, caring, everything from the most exalted love for the Lord to the darkest hatred. When a man “knows” a woman in the Bible, then, it represents a joining together of those intellectual and affectionate faculties. “Know" is also often used in connection with virginity. A women who has “not known a man” represents the affection for truth, unsullied by falsity.

6466. INFLUX AND THE INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY - continued

It was shown at the ends of the previous chapters that both kinds of life residing with a person - the life of his thought and the life of his will - flow in from heaven, and that they do so through the angels and spirits present with him. But when it is said that they flow in from heaven, this should be taken to mean that they flow in from the Lord by way of heaven. For every trace of life residing with the angels is received from the Lord, as they themselves with one accord confess, for they see with perception that it is so. And since every trace of life residing with the angels is received from the Lord, so is every trace of life residing with man received from Him; for man is governed by the Lord through angels and spirits in particular, and through heaven in general.