62. FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA

Love is the esse of man's life (n. 5002). Man, spirit, and angel, are altogether as their love is (n. 6872, 10177, 10284). Man has for an end what he loves (n. 3796). What man loves and has for an end reigns universally with him, that is, in each and all things (n. 3796, 5130, 5949). Love is spiritual heat, and the very vital principle of man (n. 1589, 2146, 3338, 4906, 7081-7086, 9954, 10740). All the interiors with man, which are of his understanding and will, are disposed in a form according to his ruling love (n. 2023, 3189, 6690). Love is spiritual conjunction (n. 1594, 2057, 3939, 4018, 5807, 6195-6196, 7081-7086, 7501, 10130). Hence all in the spiritual world are consociated according to their loves (ibid.). Affection is continuation of love (n. 3938). All delight, pleasure, happiness, and joy of heart, are of love; and their quality is according to the quality of the love (n. 994-995, 2204). There are as many genera and species of delights and pleasures as there are of the affections which are of the love (n. 994-995, 2204). The delight of the love is more vile in proportion as it is more external (n. 996). Man after death has such a life as is the quality of his love (n. 2363).

6195. Some spirits were once present with me for a long time, neither particularly good nor particularly evil ones, a little way above my head. They had the ability to flow deeply into people's affections; and because this was what they wanted to do, they also entered mine after a while and tied themselves to me in such a way that it seemed as though they could hardly be separated. I talked to them about what was going on, saying that they ought to separate themselves from me. But they could not do it. When they tried to do so and did succeed to some small extent, they then caused my thinking to be so dull that I could not think except in a confused and disjointed manner; and I felt pain in my head like that experienced by people who are fainting. This showed me how people's loves serve to join them together and that all in the next life are joined together through them. This is the reason why spirits who enter the actual affections of another take possession of him, just as happens in the world when one person indulges another person's love. But truths do not join people together, only affections for truth do so.

[2] From this it has become clear to me how a person is joined either to heaven or to hell, namely through his loves. He is joined to hell through his self-love and love of the world, but to heaven through his love of the neighbour and love of God. In addition it has been clear to me that a person tied to hell cannot possibly be released except by Divine means employed by the Lord, as has also been shown to me from those who have been tied to me by merely slender affections. I was not released from them except through intermediate kinds of love, by means of which they were gradually joined to others. As the spirits were separated they seemed to be placed further away from me, in front and to the left. I noticed that the separation took place through changes in the state of my affections; for as my affections changed, so those spirits departed from me. This also revealed to me where the appearances of distance in the next life originate.