AS
IN THE WORLD, BUT MORE DELIGHTFUL AND BLESSED, YET WITHOUT
PROLIFICATION; IN THE PLACE OF WHICH THEY EXPERIENCE SPIRITUAL
PROLIFICATION, WHICH IS THAT OF LOVE AND WISDOM. The reason why married
pairs enjoy similar communications as in the world, is, because after
death a male is a male, and a female a female, and there is implanted in
each at creation an inclination to conjunction; and this inclination
with man is the inclination of his spirit and thence of his body;
therefore after death, when a man becomes a spirit, the same mutual
inclination remains, and this cannot exist without similar
communications; for after death a man is a man as before; neither is
there any thing wanting either in the male or in the female: as to form
they are like themselves, and also as to affections and thoughts; and
what must be the necessary consequence, but that they must enjoy like
communications? And as conjugial love is chaste, pure, and holy,
therefore their communications are ample and complete; but on this
subject see what was said in the MEMORABLE RELATION, n. 44. The reason
why such communications are more delightful and blessed than in the
world, is, because conjugial love, as it is the love of the spirit,
becomes interior and purer, and thereby more perceivable; and every
delight increases according to perception, and to such a degree that its
blessedness is discernible in its delight.
52. The reason why marriages in the heavens are without prolification,
and that in place thereof there is experienced spiritual prolification,
which is that of love and wisdom, is, because with the inhabitants of
the spiritual world, the third principle--the natural, is wanting; and
it is this which contains the spiritual principles; and these without
that which contains them have no consistence, like the productions of
the natural world: moreover spiritual principles, considered in
themselves, have relation to love and wisdom; therefore love and wisdom
are the births produced from marriages in the heavens. These are called
births, because conjugial love perfects an angel, uniting him with his
consort, in consequence whereof he becomes more and more a man (_homo_)
for, as was said above, two married partners in heaven are not two but
one angel; wherefore by conjugial unition they fill themselves with the
human principle, which consists in desiring to grow wise, and in loving
whatever relates to wisdom.
53. VIII. THIS IS THE CASE WITH THO
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