Why is it that organized crime does not take over and run the world? Smart criminals, after all, have plenty of access to money: They can steal, cheat people, sell drugs and deal in gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking etc. They can and generally do get weapons, and have no compunction in using them. They can infiltrate and undermine police forces and other civil authorities. They don't tangle their decision-making in any democratic process, and have well-defined goals. It seems they could take over entire cities, enslave their populations and reign like medieval kings. But they don't.

One reason is that for every Smart Criminal "A" with royal aspirations, there's a Smart Criminal "B" who is ready to assassinate him and take the throne instead. They might cooperate as long as some third party has power, but as long as each wants power for himself, their interests are inevitably going to collide, and it will likely be a violent collision.

That is, of course, very much what we actually do see among organized criminal enterprises. The Mafia wars of the 20th century marginalized those groups as they focused on killing each other. Urban street gangs continue on the same path, warring with one another for pre-eminence. And within any one organization, the internal power structure is under perpetual stress, with each individual looking to move up the ladder.

Such is a world where love of self predominates. Each individual wants to be the greatest, wants to rule, and is willing to do anything necessary to achieve it. From that desire, each one ultimately despises all the others and wishes to rule over and even destroy them. And in the highest degree of all, each one wants to put himself even above the Lord Himself, though it is impossible for someone in such a degree of self-love to even acknowledge the Lord.

Sound nice? No! In fact, it sounds like hell - which is exactly what it is. Hell is full of people who confirmed themselves in evil in this life, who now spend eternity trying to hurt and take advantage of each other. And because each loves only himself and cares nothing for others, the battles will never end.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the Lord's intent.

The Lord is - according to the Writings - love itself, perfect and infinite. He created us so His love could have an object, and His intent is to have us freely accept His love and return it, so that He can be conjoined with us and us with Him and He can bring us to the highest possible state of human happiness.

The key there, of course, is that little word "freely." If we had no choice, then love would not be love, conjunction would not be conjunction and we would not be human. So while the Lord wants us to receive His love and return it, he created us with the capacity to receive his love and focus it on other things.

Some of those are good. We can use the Lord's love to love each other; we can use the Lord's love to love doing the right thing and being of service to others. Those are loves that we can take with us to heaven - not as exalted as loving the Lord directly, but definitely in accord with His desires.

Some of them are not so good. We can twist the Lord's love into greed, overweening pride, the love of power, unbridled lust and so forth. These are loves we can take with us to hell; they are contrary to the Lord's desires.

But the love of self is the most perverse twist of all, the one that is directly contrary to the Lord's intent. In essence, the Lord is sharing life with us, giving it to us to use freely, and rather than sharing it or using it in any way we are keeping it all for ourselves. As such it is at the root of other evils, and is the reigning love of the deepest hells.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 257, 760, 1307, 1594 [3], 1691, 2057, 2219 [2-5], 2327 [2-3], 4750, 7369, 7376, 10533; Divine Love and Wisdom 396; Divine Providence 83, 215, 233 [5-7]; Heaven and Hell 272, 401, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562)

1594. That 'they were separated, man from his brother' means that those things bring the separation about follows from what has just been stated. What 'a man, a brother' is has already been stated above at verse 8, namely unity, and therefore 'being separated, man from brother' means severance. What it is that severs the external man from the internal, the individual does not know; and there are a number of reasons for his not knowing. For one thing he does not know of - or if he has heard of, does not believe in - the existence of the internal man. And for another thing he does not know - or if he has heard, does not believe - that self-love and its desires are what cause the severance, also the love of the world and its desires, though not so much as self-love.

[2] The reason he does not know of - or if he has heard of, does not believe in - the existence of the internal man is that the life he leads is immersed in things of the body and the senses, which cannot possibly see what is interior. Interior things are able to see that which is exterior, but exterior things cannot possibly see what is interior. Take the power of sight; the internal sight can see what external sight is, but external sight cannot possibly see what internal sight is. Or take the power of understanding and of rationality; this is able to perceive what factual knowledge is, and the nature of it, but not vice versa. A further reason why the existence of the internal man is not known or believed in by the individual is that he does not believe in the existence of the spirit which is separated from the body at death, and scarcely in the existence of that internal life which people call the soul. For when the person whose mind is immersed in things of the body and the senses thinks of the spirit being separated from the body it strikes him as an impossibility because he regards the body as the place where life resides, and confirms himself in this view from the fact that animals have life as well and yet do not live on after death, in addition to many other considerations. All these ideas of his arise from the fact that the life he leads is immersed in things of the body and the senses, a life which regarded in itself is little different from the life of animals. The only difference is that man is able to think and to reason about whatever he encounters; but even then he does not reflect on this ability which places him above animals.

[3] But this is not the major cause of the severance of the external man from the internal man, for the greater number of people possess such unbelief, the highly learned more than the simple. That which causes the severance is chiefly self-love, and also love of the world, though not so much as self-love does. The reason a person does not know this is that his life is devoid of charity, and when his life is devoid of charity, how can he see that the life of self-love and its desires is so contrary to heavenly love? Also there is within self-love and its desires a kind of flame, and from it a feeling of delight which so affect a person's life that he can scarcely conceive of eternal happiness consisting of anything else. For this reason also many people suppose that eternal happiness means becoming great following the life of the body and being served by others, even by angels, while they themselves are not willing to serve anybody except for the concealed motive of being served themselves. When at such times they assert that they wish to serve the Lord alone, it is a lie, for people who are ruled by self-love wish that even the Lord should serve them. And to the extent this does not happen they depart, so strong is the desire in their hearts to become lords and rule the entire universe. What kind of government it would be when the majority, or indeed all, are like this, anyone can think out for himself. Would it not be a government like that exercised in hell where everyone loves himself more than anybody else? This is what lies hidden within self-love. From this it may become clear what the nature of self-love is, and also from the fact that it conceals within itself hatred of all who do not submit themselves to it as its slaves. And because it conceals hatred, it also conceals forms of revenge, cruelty, deceit, and further unspeakable things.

[4] Mutual love however, which alone is heavenly, consists in not only saying but also acknowledging and believing that one is utterly undeserving, and something worthless and filthy, which the Lord in His infinite mercy is constantly drawing away and holding back from the hell into which the person constantly tries, and indeed longs, to cast himself. He acknowledges and believes this because it is the truth. Not that the Lord or any angel wishes him to acknowledge and believe it just to gain his submission, but to prevent his vaunting himself when he is in fact such. This would be like excrement calling itself pure gold, or a dung-fly a bird of paradise. To the extent therefore that a person acknowledges and believes that he really is what he in fact is, he departs from self-love and its desires, and loathes himself. To the extent that this happens he receives from the Lord heavenly love, that is, mutual love, which is willing to serve all. These are the people meant by the least who become the greatest in the Lord's kingdom, Matthew 20:26-28; Luke 9:46-48.

[5] These considerations show what it is that severs the external man from the internal - chiefly self-love. And the chief thing that unites the external man to the internal is mutual love, which is in no way attainable until self-love departs, for they are complete opposites. The internal man is nothing else than mutual love. The human spirit itself, or soul, is the interior man which lives after death. It is organic, for it is joined to the body so long as the person lives in the world. This interior man - that is, his soul or spirit - is not the internal man, but the internal man is within the interior when the latter has mutual love within it. The things that belong to the internal man are the Lord's, so that one may say that the internal man is the Lord. Yet because the Lord grants an angel or man, so long as his life has mutual love in it, a heavenly proprium so that he has no idea but that he does good from himself, an internal man is therefore attributed to a person as though it were his own. The person in whom mutual love dwells however acknowledges and believes that everything good and true is not his own but the Lord's. He acknowledges and believes that his ability to love another as himself - and if he is like the angels, more than himself - is a gift from the Lord and that he ceases to enjoy that gift and its happiness to the extent he departs from acknowledging that it is the Lord's.