Babylon was an ancient city built on the Euphrates river in what is now southern Iraq. It once was the capital of a great empire which at one point conquered the land of Judah as mentioned in the second book of Kings and in Daniel. But the river changed its course and the city was abandoned long ago. Both the historic city in Mesopotamia and the parable city with its tower, mentioned in Genesis, represent the same thing, a worship that appears holy in externals, while the internals are profane. This representation expands to mean a church whose leaders use this kind of worship to gain dominion over others for their own gain and for the gain and power of the church. The city itself is the doctrinal structure that supports this kind of worship and dominion.

(Reference: Apocalypse Explained 1029; Arcana Coelestia 1283, 1302, 1304, 1310, 1311)

1304. That 'let us build ourselves a city and a tower' means that they fabricated a form of doctrine and of worship becomes clear from the meaning of 'a city' and from the meaning of 'a tower', dealt with in the paragraphs that follow this. The Church is such that when charity towards the neighbour departs and self-love takes its place, the doctrine of faith is of no account at all except insofar as it can be converted into worship of self. Nor do people consider that worship contains anything holy unless it exists for the sake of self, thus unless it is worship of self. This applies to all self-love. In fact a person who loves himself more than others not only hates everybody who is not subservient to him and shows no favour to them except when they have become subservient, but also, to the extent that he is not prevented, he plunges even into exalting himself above God. The fact that self-love is such when given free rein I have been shown in actual occurrences. These are the things meant by 'a city and a tower'. Self-love, and every desire springing from it, is of all things the filthiest and most unholy, and is very hell itself. From this anyone may deduce the nature of the worship that has such as this within it.