ice sounds utterly out of harmony
with their interior thoughts, and they are recognized by the discord. It
may be evident from this that the internal lies hidden in the tone of
voice, the speech, the face and gesture of the external, and that it is
not perceived by men in the world, but plainly by angels in the spiritual
world.

225. It is plain from this that while he lives in the natural world man
may be admitted into wisdom about spiritual things and into love of them
also, and that this happens or can happen with the merely natural as well
as with those who are spiritual, with this difference, however, that the
latter are reformed by these means and the former are not. It may seem,
also, that the former love wisdom, but they do so only as an adulterer
loves a noble woman, that is, as mistress, speaking caressingly to her
and giving her beautiful garments, but saying of her privately to
himself, "She is only a vile harlot whom I will make believe that I love
because she gratifies my lust; if she should not, I would cast her away."
The internal man of the unreformed lover of wisdom is this adulterer; his
external man is the woman.

226. (ii) _If man recedes from these later and turns to what is contrary,
he profanes holy things._ There are many kinds of profanation of what is
holy, of which in the following section, but this is the gravest of all.
Those who profane in this way become no longer human beings after death;
they live indeed, but are continually in wild fantasies. They seem to
themselves to soar aloft and while they remain there they sport with
fantasies which they see as realities. No longer human, they are referred
to not as "he" or "she" but "it." In fact, when they come to view in
heaven's light they look like skeletons, some like skeletons of the color
of bone, others like fiery skeletons, and still others like charred ones.
The world does not know that profaners of this kind become like this
after death, and the reason is that the cause is unknown. The real cause
is that when man first acknowledges and believes divine things and then
lapses and denies them, he mixes the holy with the profane. Once they are
mixed, they cannot be separated without destroying the whole. That these
things may be perceived more clearly, they are to be disclosed in due
order as follows: 1. Whatever a man thinks, speaks and does from the
will, whether good or evil, is appropriated to him and remains. 2. The
Lord in His divi