2. FIRST INDEX.

ADULTERIES (Adulteria). (See also LASCIVIOUSNESS.)

Concerning the three degrees of adulteries (386-388) [Conjugial Love 432, 485-499]. (see DEGREES.)

Concerning adulterers seen as satyrs, in company with harlots, in a wood, and in a cavern there; and afterwards in a house, where they were conversing together about marriage, nature, and religion (Memorabilia 407) [Conjugial Love 521].

They who have no religion have not conjugial love; but lust which is worse than the lust of a wild beast (439-445) [Conjugial Love 79, 239, 240].

Of the closure of the mind with adulterers and the evil (various things, 562-565) [Conjugial Love 203].

Conjugial similitude and dissimilitude are not regarded with those who are in scortatory love (818-822).

Conjugial love and scortatory love are altogether opposite to each other (847-851) [Conjugial Love 423-429].

Concerning a young man who boasted of his whoredom; he was conducted into heaven; he was held by turns in externals and internals; and thus he saw opposite things (Memorabilia 852) [Conjugial Love 477].

An internal cause of coldness between consorts is, that the evil of whoredom is not believed to be sin; still more, if it is confirmed that it is not sin (913-917) [Conjugial Love 240].

A cause of coldness is, whoredom before marriage with the wives of others; also meretricious love and concubinage after marriage: in general, all libidinousness by which the conjugial perishes (918-928).

A cause of coldness between consorts is, that conjugial love is believed to be one with scortatory love (958-961) [Conjugial Love 247].

Whoredom is the genuine cause of divorce (985-993) [Conjugial Love 255].

Adulterers do not acknowledge God (Memorabilia 1300) [Conjugial Love 500].

Whoredoms in general correspond to falsifications of truth and profanations of good, by means of the Word (1399-1403) [Conjugial Love 77, 80, 517, 518].

Heinous adulteries within the prohibited degrees correspond to certain heresies confirmed by the Word (1405-1407) [Conjugial Love 519].

The internal and spiritual cause of conjugial love is to shun adulteries from religion (1602-1606) [Conjugial Love 147-149].

An external or natural cause of love and friendship between consorts, is abstinence from whoredom from any cause, excepting impotence only (1611-1614).

Concerning angels of innocence, who did not understand what scortatory love is (Memorabilia 1738) [Conjugial Love 444].

Concerning fornication (see FORNICATION, MISTRESS).

There are several kinds of adulteries; there are those that are mild, those that are grievous, and those that are most grievous (1876) [Conjugial Love 479, 487, 491, 493].

Simple adultery is that of an unmarried man with the wife of another, or of an unmarried woman with another's husband (1877-1879) [Conjugial Love 480].

It can be seen from reason that adultery is unjust (various things, 1778) [Conjugial Love 481].

Duplicate adultery is the adultery of a husband with the wife of another, or of a wife with another's husband (1880-1885) [Conjugial Love 482].

With whom there is such adultery (carious things, 1882) [Conjugial Love 483].

There is such in England (1883) [Conjugial Love 483].

Triplicate adultery is with blood-relations (1884, 1885) [Conjugial Love 484].

There are adulteries of will, and there are adulteries of deed; and adulteries of the will in themselves are like those that are actual when opportunity offers and various fears do not prevent (1886, 1887) [Conjugial Love 490].

There are actual adulteries which are of the will, and there are adulteries which are not thus of the will; the latter are mild, but the former grievous (1889-1892) [Conjugial Love 486, 491-494].

Causes that certain adulteries are not committed in man's interior will (1892) [Conjugial Love 486].

Adulteries that are actual and of the will make man natural, sensual, and corporeal, as to the will, its inclinations and affections (1894-1896) [Conjugial Love 495, 496].

Their effect is, that man does not acknowledge God, the Divinity of the Lord, the holiness of the Word, and consequently the other things that belong to the church and to religion (1897-1903) [Conjugial Love 497].

Adulterers have the capacity to understand, equally with those who are not adulterers; but they abuse their rationality to confirm their adulteries (1904-1908) [Conjugial Love 498, 499].

How adulterers converse in favor of adulteries and against marriages (1908) [Conjugial Love 500].

The opposition of conjugial love and scortatory love (1910-1947) [Conjugial Love 423-443].

Scortatory love is opposite to celestial love, because scortatory love is infernal, and conjugial love is heavenly (1911-1914) [Conjugial Love 429].

Scortatory love is in the enjoyment of evil and falsity, but conjugial love in the enjoyment of good and truth (1915-1919) [Conjugial Love 427].

The uncleanness of hell is from scortatory love, and the cleanness of heaven is from conjugial love (1920-1924) [Conjugial Love 430].

So with what is unclean and what is clean, in the church (1925-1931) [Conjugial Love 431].

Scortatory love begins from the flesh, but conjugial love from the spirit (1932-1938) [Conjugial Love 440, 441].

Scortatory love makes a man (homo) not man; yea, the man not a man: but conjugial love makes a man (vir) more and more a man; yea, the man more and more a man (1939-1942) [Conjugial Love 432, 433].

The delights of scortatory love are pleasures of insanity, and the delights of conjugial love are enjoyments of wisdom (1943-1947) [Conjugial Love 442, 443].

Correspondence of whoredoms and adulteries with the violation of spiritual marriage, which is that of good and truth (1950-2000) [Conjugial Love 515-520]. (See CORRESPONDENCE.)

Adulteries are infernal (various things, 1999) [Conjugial Love 356, 477, 483]. (See CORRESPONDENCE.)

Some things respecting adulterers and adulteries in hell (2000) [Conjugial Love 500, 520].

Concerning those who lived after the four ancient ages; they were whoremongers and adulterers (Memorabilia 2034) [Conjugial Love 79, 80].

Concerning the hells of adulterers, in the west; where they appear like lakes of fire and brimstone (Memorabilia 2035) [Conjugial Love 79, 80].

230. 21. To the degree that a person's conjugial love wanes and is lost, his character approaches that of an animal. The reason is that the more a person is in a state of conjugial love, the more spiritual he is; and the more spiritual he is, the more human he is. For human beings are born for life after death, and they attain it because of their having in them a spiritual soul, to which they can be elevated through the faculty of their intellect. If, by the power likewise granted to it, a person's will is then elevated at the same time, after death the person lives the life of heaven.

The reverse is the case if one is in a state of love contrary to conjugial love. For the more a person is in a state like that, the more natural in character he is; and a person who is merely natural is like an animal in his lusts, appetites and resulting delights, the only difference being that he still has the power to elevate his intellect into the light of wisdom and also the power to elevate his will into the warmth of heavenly love. No one loses these faculties. As a consequence, even though a merely natural person is like an animal in his lusts, appetites and resulting delights, still he lives after death, though in a state corresponding to the kind of life he led before.

It can be seen from this that to the degree a person's conjugial love wanes, his character approaches that of an animal. This seems to be something that could be disputed, since it is possible for conjugial love to wane and be lost in people whose character is nevertheless still human. But we are referring to people in the grip of licentious love, who do not care about conjugial love therefore and for that reason experience its failure and loss.

477. To this I will append the following narrative account:

I heard a certain spirit, a young man newly come from the world, boasting of his licentious activities and acting as though he wished to have the acclaim of being a man more manly than others. Then amid the effronteries of his boasting, he blurted out also the following:

"What is more dismal than to imprison one's love and to live alone with only one woman? And what is more delightful than to set one's love free? Who is not wearied by the companionship of one, and enlivened by the attentions of many? Is anything sweeter than unrestricted freedom, variety, the deflowering of virgins, the deceiving of husbands, and licentious charades? Do not those things delight the inmost elements of the mind which are obtained by wiles, subterfuges and theft?"

[2] On hearing this, the people standing by said, "Do not speak so! You do not know where you are and in whose company you are. You have only recently arrived here. Under your feet is hell, and above your head is heaven. You are now in the world which is midway between those two and is called the world of spirits. All people come here and are gathered here who pass away out of the world, and they are explored with respect to their character and prepared, evil people for hell and good people for heaven. Perhaps you recall still from priests in the world that licentious and wanton men and women are cast into hell, and that the chastely married are taken up into heaven."

The newcomer laughed at that, saying, "What is heaven, and what is hell? Is it not heaven wherever a person is free, and is he not free who is at liberty to make love to as many of the opposite sex as he pleases? And is it not hell wherever a person is enslaved, and is he not enslaved who must restrict himself to one?"

[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard what he was saying and stopped him from speaking, to keep him from going any further and speaking profanely of marriage. And the angel said to him, "Come up here, and I will show you by actual experience what heaven is and what hell is, and what the latter is like for the deliberately licentious."

The angel then pointed out a path, by which the newcomer ascended. And after receiving the newcomer, he took him first to a garden paradise, containing fruit trees and flowers whose beauty, charm and fragrance filled their spirits with invigorating delights.

On seeing these sights, the newcomer marveled with great admiration; but he was then seeing with his external sight, of the kind he had had in the world when viewing like things there, and in that state of sight he was rational. However, when seeing with his internal sight, in which licentiousness predominated and occupied every particle of his thought, he was not rational. His external sight was closed up, therefore, and his internal sight opened. And when it was opened he said, "What is this I am seeing now? Are they not wisps of straw and dry sticks of wood? And what am I smelling now? Is it not a foul stench? Where now have the things of paradise gone?"

Whereupon the angel said, "They are close by and around you, but they are not visible to your internal sight, which is licentious; for licentiousness turns heavenly things into hellish ones and sees only their opposites. Every person has an inner mind and an outer mind, thus an internal sight and an external sight. In evil people the inner mind is insane and the outer one wise, while in good people the inner mind is wise and in consequence of it the outer one too; and the character of the mind determines how a person in the spiritual world sees objects."

[4] After that, by a power given him, the angel closed up the newcomer's internal sight and opened his external one; and he took him through some gates towards the central area of their residences, where the young man saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, with arcades adjoining them, and columns round about, covered and beset with stunning emblems and ornamentations.

When the young man saw these, he was overwhelmed with astonishment, and he said, "What am I seeing? I am seeing magnificent sights in the essence of their magnificence, and architecture in the essence of its art!"

But then the angel closed up his external sight again, and opened his internal one, which was evil because of its foully licentious character; and at that the young man cried out, saying, "What am I seeing now? Where am I? Where now have the palaces and magnificent sights gone? I am seeing ruins, rubble, and cavernous hollows!"

[5] He was, however, shortly restored to his external state and taken into one of the palaces; and he beheld the ornamentations of the doors, windows, walls and ceilings - especially of the implements, which were covered and beset with heavenly forms of gold and precious stones such as words cannot describe or any art portray; for they transcended the imagery of words and the conceptions of art.

Seeing these things, the young man cried out again, saying, "These are truly marvels, never seen by any eye before!"

But then as previously his external sight was closed up and his internal one opened; and on being asked what he saw now, he replied, "Nothing but walls of rushes here, of straw there, and of firebrands over there."

[6] Again, however, he was brought into his external state of mind, and maidens were presented to him who were pictures of beauty, because they were images of heavenly affection; and these spoke to him in the sweet voice of their affection. At that, then, on seeing and hearing them, the young man's expression changed, and he spontaneously slipped back into his internal qualities, which were licentious. And because these qualities cannot endure any element of heavenly love, and conversely cannot be endured by any heavenly love, they vanished on both sides - the maidens from the sight of the man, and the man from the sight of the maidens.

[7] After that the angel informed him of the reason for these changes in the state of his sight. "I perceive," he said, "that in the world from which you come, you had a dual character, being one person in your inner qualities and another in your outer ones; and that in your outer qualities you were a law-abiding, moral and rational person, but in your inner qualities not law-abiding, not moral, and not rational, because you were licentious and an adulterer. When people of this character are permitted to ascend into heaven and are kept there in their outer qualities, they can see the heavenly objects around them; but when their inner qualities are laid open, instead of heavenly objects they see hellish ones.

[8] "However, you should know that the outer qualities in everyone here are gradually closed up and the inner ones laid open, and thus they are prepared for heaven or for hell. Furthermore, because the evil of licentiousness defiles the inner qualities of the mind more than any other evil, it is inevitable that you be carried down to the foul depravities of your love, depravities which exists in the hells, in caverns which stink of excrement.

"Who cannot know from reason that unchasteness and lasciviousness in the spiritual world is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing pollutes and defiles a person more and induces on him a hellish character?

"Take care, therefore, not to boast any further of your licentiousness, thinking that in this you are a man more manly than others. I predict to you that you will become impotent, even so that you scarcely know where your masculinity lies. Such is the fate that awaits those who boast of the prowess of their licentiousness."

After hearing this the young man descended and went back to the world of spirits, and returning to his former companions, he spoke with them modestly and chastely - but yet not for long.