179. (20). Truly conjugial love regarded in itself is a union of souls, a conjunction of minds, an effort to conjunction in breasts, and a consequent effort to conjunction in body. That it is a union of souls and conjunction of minds may be seen above in no. 158. That it is an effort to conjunction in breasts is because the breast is like a city's town hall, and like a royal court, and the body like the teeming city surrounding it. The breast is like a city's town hall because all decisions delivered from the soul and mind to the body flow first into the breast. It is like a royal court because it is the seat of government over all things of the body; for that is where the heart and lungs are, and the heart reigns through the blood in every part of the body, and the lungs through the respiration. It is apparent that the body is then like the teeming city surrounding such places.

Consequently, when the souls and minds of married partners are united, and united by truly conjugial love, it follows that this lovely union flows into their breasts, and through these into their bodies, and causes an effort to conjunction. This is also all the more so, because conjugial love directs the effort to its ultimate expressions, in order to bring its blissful pleasures to fulfillment. And because the breast is at the midpoint, it is apparent why conjugial love has found the seat of its exquisite sensation there.

158. 2. Conjugial love joins two souls and thus two minds into one. Every human being is made up of soul, mind and body. The soul is his inmost constituent; the mind is his intermediate one; and the body is the outmost part. Because the soul is a person's inmost constituent, it is, from its origin, celestial. Because the mind is his intermediate constituent, it is, from its origin, spiritual. And because the body is the outmost part, it is, from its origin, natural.

Things which are, from their origin, celestial, and things which are, from their origin, spiritual, do not exist in space, but are in appearances of space. This is also known in the world. That is why it is said that spiritual things cannot have dimension or location ascribed to them. Consequently, since the spaces are appearances, distances and nearnesses are appearances as well. Appearances of distance and nearness in the spiritual world depend on congruences, similarities, and affinities of love, as I have quite often pointed out and established in works I have written about that world. ¹

[2] We say this here in order to have it known that people's souls and minds are not in space, as their bodies are, because, as we said above, their souls and minds are from their origin celestial and spiritual. And because they are not in space, they can be joined together as though into one, even though their bodies cannot be so joined at the same time.

This conjunction takes place especially between married partners who love each other deeply. But because woman comes from man, and this conjunction is a kind of reunion, reason can see that it is not an amalgamation into one but an adjunction, nearer and closer according to the love, and to the point of contact in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love. This adjunction may be called a spiritual dwelling together, which occurs in the case of married partners who love each other tenderly, however separated they may be in body. There are many evidences of experience, even in the natural world, which attest to this.

It is apparent from this that conjugial love joins two souls and minds into one.

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