DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE NOTES Date: 1985-2004

by Leon James

Part 1--Regenerating our Marriage

CONTENTS

1. Introduction to the Doctrine of the Wife--The Six Propositions 2. Wife as Neighbor in the First Place 3. Quoting from Swedenborg 4. The Spiritual Psychobiology of Marriage

1. Introduction to the Doctrine of the Wife--The Six Propositions

The DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE (DOW) is the title for a collection of arguments I extracted from De Hemelsche Leer, a publication from the 1930s by a Dutch group of inspired scrutators of the Writings of Swedenborg (please see these three articles). Interestingly, the name of the "Doctrine of the Wife" is not mentioned or discussed in that publication or in Swedenborg's Writings. It appears that no one until now (1985) has received this idea from the Writings of Swedenborg. I believe it to be of crucial importance to the regeneration of marriages from external to internal, from legal-moral to spiritual-eternal, from a temporary partnership of convenience and natural love, to spiritual love, or an eternal unity of mind and heart. This united marriage was witnessed by Swedenborg in his celestial travels and described in many of his works, and especially in Conjugial Love. I am thankful and feel greatly blessed that this new rational truth of the New Church was shown me that I may take charge of my own regeneration, and thus, the regeneration of my marriage with Diane. At the same time I feel a great responsibility to communicate this new truth that has such amazing power to heal marriages and transform them into the greatest experience of happiness and power that is given to humankind.

The following six propositions summarize The Doctrine Of The Wife:

". Jehovah was with Sarah; she said to Abraham, Cast out this bond-woman and her son this being very grieving in the eyes of Abraham, God admonished him, Grieve not but comply with Sarah in all this matter" Genesis 21: 1-12c

I. In order to regenerate our earthly marriage into a celestial marriage, it is the wife (represented by Sarah in the Old Testament) who ought to rule over the husband's

affections (represented by Abraham) so that he may undergo celestial temptations. This is the spiritual message in the Biblical story of Abraham being told by God to obey Sarah who told him to banish Hagar with Ishmael from the household and the inheritance. This historical event is told in order to represent the celestial state of marriage and how it is brought about spiritually, namely, by the husband's VOLUNTARY submission to the wife's will in matters of conjugial love. In itself, when considering the Biblical story literally, Sara's demand seems unjust and motivated only to protect their other son Isaac whose mother was Sarah. But in the internal sense, the letter of the history vanishes from sight and one sees its spiritual message, which is that every husband ought to obey his wife's inner intuition regarding their relationship, and he can rest assured that it is God who is giving his wife this inner perception or awareness which husbands are not given. In this way, mutual interdependence is restored so that the couple may advance to inner unity.

II. All things of a husband's affections belong to the province of conjugial love. The husband voluntarily appoints the wife to rule over this domain of their relationship. No conjugial marriage can develop by the wife assuming this role on her own or through her will power and dominant personality in competition with that of the husband. The transformation from outer civic, moral, and religious marriage to inner, spiritual, and eternal marriage is possible ONLY IF the husband himself voluntarily appoints (or elects) his wife as ruler of his own affective domain. And even after making this confession, acknowledgment, and appointment, it only becomes actual and successful to the extent that the husband overcomes his many vacillations and second thoughts (temptations), thus in proportion to his constancy and steadfast application of the Doctrine of the Wife to every part of his life.

III. THE FIRST STEP: The process of transforming the external marriage into an internal marriage is accomplished like the growth process of a plant--constantly, but bit by bit, day by day, and minute by minute. When the husband appoints his wife ruler of his affections, he is motivated by the desire to reform his character which is natural and opposed to conjugial love. This must be the first step: he acknowledges that he is appointing his wife ruler of his affections FOR THE PURPOSE OF allowing him to reform his character in such a way that from being opposed to internal unity with his wife, he may be for it. This ACKNOWLEDGING by the husband is the first step, but it must be re-affirmed and audibly and verbally declared daily, and even more often than that! By doing this daily, the husband provides new strength for his motivation, but also, reassures his wife who needs to be reassured by him over and over again, that he is the one who is appointing her ruler and not she who is taking on this position out of competition or domination. This is extremely important! It is essential for success.

IV. THE SECOND STEP: The cumulation in the growth of conjugial love and the establishment of inner unity between husband and wife takes place through the mechanism of celestial temptations. For an explanation of temptations see this article. Both husband and wife undergo temptations as a means to their individual regeneration. Temptations are the means used by our Divine Therapist to reform our inherited character and our acquired inclinations for selfishness, cruelty, and self-destruction. In terms of the reformation of the husband into a conjugial character, he must first undergo natural temptations to make a moral man out of him. After that he must

undergo spiritual temptations to make rational man out of him. After after that, he must undergo celestial temptations to make a celestial or angelic husband out of him. These celestial temptations are brought to his attention and conscious awareness when he appoints his wife as ruler of his affections. God directs the timing of every temptation and gives the person power to resist. All the person needs to do is to be willing to use this power as-of self while acknowledging it is the Lord's power. This as-of self effort takes self-compulsion and the willingness to go through the mental suffering it takes not to give in to temptation but to resist. The wife is inspired by the Lord to perceive and see the husband's inner affections, those of which he is unaware of, or remains blinded to by his current character. Therefore when she tells him to do this instead of that, he experiences a rebellion from within himself. He must then witness this inner resistance and become consciously aware of it, of what it is. WITNESSING is the second step of conjugial regeneration of the husband. To the extent that he witnesses his inner rebellion against the wife's rules, expectations, and urgings, to that extent he puts himself in a position to change his selfish and self-centered independent character.

V. THE THIRD STEP: After acknowledging the Doctrine of the Wife, after witnessing his rebellion to her urgings, the third and final step is to modify his reaction. MODIFYING his typical and automatic reaction of resistance to his wife's urgings, is the husband's third and final step. This requires self-compulsion with the help of prayer to the Lord who is actually doing all the fighting against all the hells all the time to save the husband from his automatic down sliding straight into the hells he has inherited from his family. Every individual without exception inherits the evil tendencies of parents who inherit them for their parents up the cumulative chain of biological and spiritual inheritance. This is why a husband must be willing to suffer himself to be regenerated in character so that from bad he may become good. The wife plays a crucial or essential role. He has the power to resist and defeat her or, to cooperate and achieve success, which is their organic unity in mind and heart.

VI. But what about the wife? This is the question husbands cherish when they hear about the Doctrine of the Wife and how it is all worded and addressed only to husbands. It is the classic dropping of the ball at the crucial play, out of selfishness and ingrained stupidity that is evil and cruel. This is the very character we are trying to reform and run away from. We must repeat to ourselves as husbands that the Lord is already taking care of the wife--it's not our business. Our business is to take care of our own conjugial reformation. Husbands should remember that women are born and structured entirely differently than men, so that they may enter into a reciprocal unity with their husbands. For diagrams of spiritual gender genes, please see this article. Husbands can rest assured in the revelations we have been given in the Writings of Swedenborg, namely that the internal structure of the wife's mind and soul is such as to desire and strive ceaselessly towards union with her husband. So it is the husband who needs special help in this respect. He is the one who is covered over with an inherited and cultural personality and character that resists unity in marriage.

(Note: If you want to see how this Threestep Method was applied to us in another area of life, see our Web site on Road Rage and Aggressive Driving.)

2. Wife as Neighbor in the First Place According to the Doctrine of the Wife (an expression I coined in 1985), my wife is my neighbor in the highest degree, and therefore I must love her more than I love anyone or anything else.

November 1986: Leon's Notes on CL 293-4: (see below)

The Doctrine of the Wife is this, that the regenerating husband "Hearkens unto Sarah" that is, acts according to his moral wisdom. A husband has this wisdom from the study of the Word. This gives him spiritual rationality to the extent that he wills himself to apply it to life, that is, in interactions with his wife. In these conjugial interactions, the wife acts from conjugial love from the Lord, and the husband receives perception through wisdom, and then reacts with conjugial heat. Applying the Third Testament trues to receive the wife's loving actions, is his moral wisdom that delights and satisfies the wife.

When we husbands are in the unregenerate state of mind, we hate conjugial love, which is the sexual love of the wife alone or only, because we love "meretricious" sex, which is "crude sex with harlots", and we turn cold, that is, impotent, in the sphere of conjugial sex.

Therefore, the wife, sensing this about her husband, hides her conjugial sex love, which are her inward bosom delights, and instead, fakes or simulates crude sex, that is, lacking in sincerity, to keep him from impotence with her. She also acts less interested and hard to get for this reason, that is, angry, quarrelsome, vehement, and insistent.

Evidence that constitutes proof follows in 3 Steps:

Step 1: The neighbor is all the good in others by which I am affected.

Step 2: In daily life, one is most affected by one's spouse; therefore, my wife is neighbor to me in greater degree than anyone else.

Step 3: Loving the neighbor is the principal thing in religion and life; therefore, I must love my wife more than anyone else as she is my neighbor in the greatest degree.

Now the details:

See the list of abbreviations for Swedenborg's writings

Step 1: The neighbor is all the good in others by which one is affected

Quoting from AC 2417:6 "the neighbor is all the good in others by which one is affected."

This means that we should use a measuring stick, or criterion, for charity in terms of how much good we can perceive in someone, good by which we are affected. Strangers by whom we are hardly affected are not to be loved to the same degree as people close by whose good affect us.

This agrees with common sense. We give to the poor, yes, but we give to our children more, much more. We are sad when we hear the news of the 125th traffic death in our town so far this year; but we grieve and despair when a daughter, son, or parent meets with an accidental death. There is almost no comparison! We love our own more than strangers. The commandment "Love thy neighbor" does not mean love all individuals equally.

"Love thy neighbor" is related to "Love thy enemy"? Some military educators say that soldiers in battle who don't hate their enemy won't feel like killing them. But expecting soldiers to kill out of hate is to treat them like savage beasts rather than civilized persons. As soldiers, we should be fighting out of love of country, respect for the law, and reliance on Divine Providence to sort it all out. We pick up arms in defense of country; we kill legitimate targets when ordered; we ask the Divine for comfort and speedy resolution of the conflict.

In this way we are called to kill from love of good, to protect it from harm. Soldiers ought not to kill out of hatred for the enemy. Hatred is degrading. When bullets hit their mark, tearing up the enemy's flesh and crushing their bones, the good soldier doesn't need to look on with glee. He might even wish he could come to the rescue, and he could hope for a speedy end to the suffering, seeing God weeping, and himself feeling like crying. Yet, he raises his gun again, clearing his weepy eyes, aims, and kills again. If the good is left unprotected under attack, evil takes over and destroys all that we cherish or need for our happiness. Killing the enemy cannot be avoided when his motive is to destroy your country and home.

A soldier ought to love the good in the enemy because only the Divine is good. The Divine ought to be loved above all in order to be able to receive all that is good. Soldiers who love the good in their enemies, love their enemies, thus fulfilling the Divine Commandment "Love thy enemy". Yet the soldiers continue to kill the enemy because there is no other way to protect the good under attack. But when the conflict is over and peace is made, the former enemy is now the neighbor to whom a helping economic hand is extended and with whom cultural exchanges are made. This happened with Western Europe and Germany in two world wars, with the U.S. and Russia, with Israel and the Palestinians, etc. Love your neighbor means love the good in your neighbor. Love your enemy means love the good in your enemy. In both cases it is the Divine that you love since only the Divine is good.

Step 2: In daily life, one is most affected by one's spouse; therefore, one's spouse is neighbor in greater degree than anyone else.

Our legal system recognizes that it's unfair to force a spouse to testify against the other. This makes sense since married couples affect each other more than others, for example, in such areas as their income, their health, their moods, their philosophy, and their moral standing.

Should spouses love each other more than the children? Yes. There are two reasons. One is that a spouse is neighbor in the first place, as explained. In other words, when there is a conflict between one's children and one's spouse, the spouse always has priority for loyalty or devotion. The children must come second.

The other reason for the spouse's precedence over children is that a spouse in a conjugial relationship is for eternity, while children are only for this life. In fact, as Swedenborg's eyewitness reports show, parents and children do not know each other in the other world UNLESS they develop an inner relationship with each other in this world. We know how rare this is nowadays!! The result is that spouses and children and friends that one has known in this world in an external way without also in an internal way, are typically not recognized in the other world.

Step 3: The most important Divine Commandment for any man is: Love thy wife more than anyone or anything.

In other words, I love the Divine by loving my wife. When I put her off because of some other pressing thing, I injure and kill my neighbor. When I fail to do what I led her to expect, I bear false witness against my neighbor. When she pleads with me, and I ultimately do not listen, I sin against the Divine. If anything in my life becomes more important than my wife, I am guilty of idol worship. If I try to worship the Divine in a way that puts my wife to the side, I am crucifying the Divine. Why this way? Does it seem unfair, extreme, subjective? All these objections fall to the side in the face of this one overarching fact: Unless I worship the Divine in my wife I remain unsaved!

What if my wife is imbalanced, uneducated, volatile, unintelligent, spoiled, greedy, silly, incompetent, cold, lazy??? My wife calls these objections "wimpy excuses"! Yes, I had them all. Anyway, once we (men) get passed this obstructionist tactic (it took me two decades!!), the Divine gives us illustration. At the point we know what is right and we then continue the long struggle of overcoming one's resistance to the good and true.

This takes place through hundreds of little exchanges between wife and husband on a daily basis for decades. The wife must remain steadfast and overt in her stances: NO COMPROMISES!. The husband must be totally obedient ("subservient" in his own exaggerated eyes). Lapses must be made up. The husband must always support the wife against himself. This is the only way it will work.

Bottom Line for Regenerating Husbands:

If I am to regenerate and enter into eternal life and conjugial bliss, I must regard my wife as higher and more important than anyone or anything FOR THE SAKE OF THE DIVINE. And I must love that it is so.

Warning! It is necessary to add FOR THE SAKE OF THE DIVINE (or God, or Lord, or religion, or conscience, or ... -- please use the phrase that offends you least). Otherwise, a man can love his wife for his own sake, which is not regenerating. In that case, he will alternate between loving her and hating her -- as it's so typical today. This is hell, not heaven. Therefore it's mandatory that we add the words and thought: FOR THE SAKE OF THE DIVINE I must love her and if I don't love her in this way I do not love the Divine.

Quoting from Swedenborg:

AC 2425:3

But they who are in the good of charity, and from this in the affection of truth, do all things with discrimination, for they are in light; since the light of truth is from no other source than good, because the Divine flows in by means of good. These persons do not do good to the poor, to orphans, to widows, and to strangers, for the mere reason that they are so termed; for they know that those who are good, whether poor or rich, are neighbors more than all others; since by the good, good is done to others even still more (...) But they who set the Divine before all these-who adore the Divine alone and love the divine above all things-derive the neighbor in all these degrees from the Divine; for the Divine alone is the neighbor in the highest sense, thus all good is the neighbor in so far as it is from the Divine.

3. Quoting from Swedenborg

Quoting from Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia (AC)

AC 904

[3] The presence of the Divine is first possible with people when an individual loves the neighbor. God is inside love; and so far as a person is loving, so far the Divine is present; and so far as the Divine is present, so far God speaks with the individual. We know no otherwise than that we think from ourselves, whereas we have not a single idea, nor even the least bit of an idea, from ourselves; but we have what is evil and false through evil spirits from hell, and what is good and true through angels from the Divine.

Quoting from Swedenborg's Conjugial Love (CL)

CL 293. I shall here add two accounts of experiences, of which this is the first.

I once looked out of a window towards the east, and saw seven women sitting in a rose-garden by a spring, drinking its water. I gazed very hard to see what they were doing, and the intensity of my gaze made itself felt by them. So one of them nodded to me as an invitation. I left home and hurried to join them, and on my arrival politely asked them where they came from.

'We are wives,' they said, 'engaged in a conversation about the delights of conjugial love. Many proofs have led us to conclude that these delights are those of wisdom.' This reply so pleased my mind that I seemed to myself to be in the spirit, and capable of more inward

and clearer perception than ever before. So I said to them, 'Will you allow me to ask you some questions about these pleasures?' They agreed to this, so I asked, 'How do you wives know that the delights of conjugial love are the same as those of wisdom?'

[2] 'We know this,' they answered, 'from the way our husbands' wisdom matches the delights we feel in conjugial love. For we feel the delights of this love enhanced or diminished, taking on the nature which matches the wisdom our husbands have.' On hearing this I asked, 'I know that flattery on the part of husbands and their cheerfulness of mind affect you, so that you feel delight with all your hearts in them. But I am surprised you say that this is the result of their wisdom. Tell me what wisdom this is, and of what sort.'

[3] The wives were indignant at this. 'Do you think,' they replied, 'we do not know what wisdom this is and of what sort, when we constantly reflect on our husbands' wisdom, and hear about it daily from their lips? We wives think about our husbands' condition from morning to evening; there is hardly a minute's respite during the day, in which the concentration of our thoughts really leaves them or is absent. On the other hand, our husbands spend very little time during the day thinking about our condition. This is how we know what wisdom of theirs takes delight in us. Our husbands call this spiritual rational wisdom and spiritual moral wisdom. Spiritual rational wisdom according to what they say belongs to the intellect and knowledge; spiritual moral wisdom to the will and the way we live. But they combine both of these into one, and hold that the pleasures of this wisdom are copied from their minds into the delights felt in our hearts, and then from our hearts into theirs, so that they return to the wisdom that was their source.'

[4] Then I asked whether they knew anything more about the way their husbands' wisdom took delight in them. 'Yes,' they said. 'There is spiritual wisdom, and rational and moral wisdom from this. Spiritual wisdom is to acknowledge the Lord the Savior as the God of heaven and earth, and from Him to gather for oneself the truths of the church, which is done through the Word and preaching based on it. This leads to spiritual rationality. It is also to be led by the Lord to live in accordance with those truths; this leads to spiritual morality. Our husbands call these two the wisdom which in general brings about truly conjugial love.

'We have also heard from them the reason for this: that this wisdom opens up the inner levels of their minds, and so of their bodies, thus creating a free passage for the current of love from its first beginnings to its last realizations. It is on the quantity, adequacy and strength of this current that conjugial love depends and lives. The spiritual rational and moral wisdom of our husbands has as its particular purpose and aim in marriage the love of one wife alone, setting aside all lust after others. To the extent that this is achieved, that love is enhanced in degree and perfected in nature; and we also feel more clearly and exquisitely in ourselves the delights which match the joys of our husbands' affections and the pleasures of their thoughts.'

[5] Later I asked whether they knew how these were shared. 'Every act of linking by means of love' they said, 'involves acting, receiving and reacting. The delightful state of our love is the acting or that which acts. The state of our husbands' wisdom is the receiving or what receives, and this too is the reacting or that which reacts in proportion to what is felt. This reaction is felt by us with delights in our heart in keeping with the state constantly deployed and made ready to receive the influences, which in some way hang together with and proceed from the strength in our husbands and also with the ultimate state of love. Take care,' they went on to say, 'you do not understand the delights we have spoken of to mean

the lowest delights of that love. We never say anything on that subject, but we do speak of the delights of our hearts, which perpetually match the state of our husbands' wisdom.'

[6] After this what looked like a dove was seen in the distance, flying with a tree-leaf in its mouth. But as it approached, instead of a dove, it looked like a small boy with a document in his hand. He came up to us and held it out to me, saying, 'Read this in the presence of the spring-maidens.' What I read was this: 'Tell the inhabitants of earth among whom you are that there is truly conjugial love, and it has tens of thousands of delights, though the world is so far only aware of a few. But it will get to know them, when the church betroths itself to the Lord and marries Him.' Then I asked, 'Why did that boy call you spring-maidens?' 'We are called maidens,' they replied, 'when we sit by this spring, since we are affections for the truths of our husbands' wisdom; and an affection for truth is called a maiden. The spring too stands for the truth of wisdom, and the rose-garden in which we sit stands for its delights.'

[7] Then one of the seven wove a garland of roses, sprinkled it with spring water, and placed it on the boy's hat around the crown, saying, 'Receive the delights of intelligence. You should know that a hat stands for intelligence, and a garland from this garden for its delights.' The boy went off with this adornment, and was seen again at a distance looking like a dove in flight, but this time with a crest on his head.

CL 294. The second experience.

Some days later I again saw the seven wives in a rose-garden, but not the same one as before. It was a magnificent rose-garden, the like of which I had never seen before. It was circular, and the roses were arranged to make a kind of rainbow. The outermost ring was made of roses with purple flowers, the next inner ring of flowers of a golden yellow, the one within this of blue, the inmost of light or shining green. Inside this rainbow of roses was a small pool of limpid water. The seven wives, who had earlier been called the spring-maidens, were sitting there when they spied me at the window, and called me to visit them again. When I arrived they said, 'Have you ever seen anything more beautiful on earth?' 'Never,' I said. 'Such things,' they told me, 'are created by the Lord in a moment, and they represent something new on earth, since everything created by the Lord represents something. But see if you can guess what this represents. Our guess is that it is the delights of conjugial love.'

[2] On hearing this I said, 'Do you mean the delights of conjugial love about which you had so much to say before, with such wisdom and also eloquence? After I left you, I reported what you had said to some wives who live in our district. 'Now I have been taught,' I told them, 'I know that you have delights in your hearts arising from your conjugial love, and you are able to share these with your husbands in proportion to their wisdom. Consequently you gaze at your husbands continually from morning to evening with the eyes of your spirits, trying to deflect and guide their minds towards being wise, so that you can snap up these delights. I also related what you mean by wisdom, spiritual rational and spiritual moral wisdom. I said your view of marriage was that it was restricted to loving one's wife only and putting away all lust after other women. But the wives of our district responded to this by laughing. "What is this you say?" they said, "this is all nonsense. We do not know what conjugial love is. Even if our husbands have some, we certainly don't have any. So how could we enjoy its delights? In fact, we sometimes violently refuse what you call the ultimate delights, for we find them displeasing, hardly different from suffering rape. In fact, if you look closely, you will not see any sign of such a love in our faces. So

you must be talking nonsense or joking, if you told those seven wives that we think about our husbands from morning to evening, continually paying attention to their whims and pleasures, in order to gain such delights from them." I remember this from what they said, so that I could report it to you, seeing that they find repugnant and in fact totally contradict what you told me by the spring, which I so eagerly drank it in and believed it.'

[3] The wives sitting in the rose-garden replied to this, 'Friend, you are unaware of the wisdom and prudence wives possess, because they keep it completely hidden from men; and they do so for no other purpose but to be loved. For each man, who is not spiritually but only naturally rational and moral, is cold to his wife, a feeling hidden at his innermost level. A wise and prudent wife has a keen and exact perception of this, and so to this extent she conceals and retracts into her heart her conjugial love, keeping it so deeply hidden as not to show the slightest trace of it in her face, her tone of voice or her gestures. The reason is that the more she shows this, the more her husband's coldness to marriage floods out from where it is lodged in the inmost levels of his mind into the outermost levels, inducing a total chill in the body, and so an impulse to seek a separate bed and bedroom.'

[4] Then I asked, 'Where does the coldness that you call coldness to marriage come from?' 'It comes,' they replied, 'from their folly about spiritual matters. Everyone who is foolish about spiritual matters feels at the inmost level coldness towards his wife, and warmth towards prostitutes. Since conjugial love and scortatory love are opposites, it follows that, when scortatory love is hot, conjugial love is cold. When a man has coldness dominant in him, he cannot put up with any feeling of love, not even a breath of it, coming from his wife. So his wife wisely and prudently conceals it, and to the extent that she conceals it by her denials and refusals, to that extent her husband is warmed and restored by the sphere of prostitution influencing him. That is why the wife of such a man has no delights in his heart, as we have, but only pleasures. These are called the pleasures of folly as applied to the man, since they are the pleasures of scortatory love.

[5] 'Every chaste wife loves her husband, even if he is unchaste. But since wisdom is the only means by which her love can be received, she devotes all her energies to turning his folly into wisdom, that is, preventing him lusting after other women. She has a thousand ways of doing this, but she takes the greatest care to see that none of them are tracked down by her husband. For she is well aware that love can never be forced, but slips in where there is freedom. Women therefore have been given the ability to recognize by sight, hearing and touch any state of mind their husbands have. Men, on the other hand, are not given the ability to recognize any state of mind their wives have.

[6] 'A chaste wife can look sternly at her husband, speak harshly to him, get angry and quarrel with him, while still in her heart she cherishes a mild and tender love for him. These fits of anger and pretense are aimed at making the husband wise and receptive of her love, as is obvious from the fact that they can be instantly reconciled. Moreover, wives have these methods of concealing their love implanted in their heart and marrow, in order to prevent an explosion of coldness to marriage in the husband. It is also to prevent this coldness quenching the fire of his scortatory warmth, thus turning him from green wood into a dry stick.'

[7] After this and many similar lectures from the seven wives, their husbands came with bunches of grapes in their hands, some of which had a delightful taste, but others a sharp one. 'Why,' said the wives, 'have you brought us nasty or uncultivated grapes?' 'Because,' the husbands replied, 'we could tell in our souls, which are united with yours, that you have

been talking to that man about truly conjugial love, saying its delights are those of wisdom, and about scortatory love, saying its delights are the pleasures of folly. These last are the grapes with the nasty taste, the former ones are the ones that taste delightful.'

They confirmed what their wives had said, adding that the pleasures of folly look on the outside like the delights of wisdom, but not on the inside. 'They are,' they said, 'just like the good and the nasty grapes we brought. Both the chaste and the unchaste have outwardly the same kind of wisdom, but inwardly it is quite different.'

[8] After this the little boy came back again with a parchment in his hand; he held it out to me and said, 'Read it.' This is what I read: 'You must know that the delights of conjugial love rise to the highest heaven, being joined on the way and there by the delights of all the heavenly loves. So they enter upon their happiness which lasts for ever. This is because the delights of that love are the delights of wisdom. You must also know that the pleasures of scortatory love sink down to the lowest hell, being joined on the way and there by the pleasures of all hellish loves, and thus they enter upon unhappiness, which consists in distress affecting all the heart's joys. This is because the pleasures of that love are also the pleasures of folly.'

After this the husbands went away with their wives, escorting the little boy until his path took him up to heaven. They were able to recognize the community which had sent him as being one of the new heaven, with which the new church on earth will be linked.

CL 291. (20) Various types of apparent love and friendship are possible between partners in cases where one has been subjugated and is thus subservient to the other. After a married couple has passed through the initial stages of marriage, contests arise between them over who has what right and who has what power. The dispute over who has what right turns about the fact that according to the terms of their compact and covenant they have equality, and yet each has his own standing in duties connected with his role. The dispute over who has what power then arises from the fact that men insist on having superiority in all matters affecting the household just because they are men, leaving women in a position of inferiority just because they are women. That this is what happens is something people are aware of in today's world. Such familiar contests at the present day spring from no other circumstance than people's ignorance of true conjugial love and their lack of any perception or sensation of the blessings of that love. In the absence of an awareness and perception or sensation of these things, instead of true conjugial love comes a desire to possess which masquerades as that love. With genuine love removed, from this desire wells a striving for power, an endeavor which in some cases is a matter of delight arising from a love of ruling, which in some cases is a tactic instilled by shrewd women before the wedding, and which in some cases is provoked.

[2] When men have this as their endeavor and after a succession of struggles obtain the mastery, they then reduce their wives to the condition of being either a possession at their disposal, or toadies obedient to their will, or indentured servants, depending on the degree of their will to prevail and the capability they have inherent or latent in them. On the other hand, if wives have this as their endeavor and after a succession of struggles obtain the mastery, they then reduce their husbands to the condition of being either equal to them in privilege, or toadies obedient to their will, or indentured servants. However, in the case of wives, after they have obtained the scepter of command, their desire to possess that masquerades as conjugial love remains, being held in check by law and the fear of

legitimate separation if they extend their power beyond just limits; and since it remains, they therefore lead a companionable life with their husbands.

[3] But what sort of love and friendship exists between a domineering wife and a subservient husband, or between a domineering husband and a subservient wife, cannot be described in a few words. Even if their different types were condensed into classes and these classes were listed, several pages would not suffice; for they vary in character and kind. They vary in character in the case of men according to the nature of their will to prevail; so likewise in the case of wives. And their diversities in men differ in kind from those which are identifiable with women. They differ in kind, because men of this sort feel no friendship of love other than a foolish one, whereas wives feel the friendship of an illusory love stemming from their desire to possess. By what art wives acquire for themselves power over men shall now be told under the following heading.

4. The Spiritual Psychobiology of Marriage

The diagram immediately above shows the two phases or stages of marriage. Initially, the man's consciousness of externalizing truth, which is the truth he knows, conjoins itself with

the wife's externalizing good. That is the wife's externalizing affections conjoin with the husband's externalizing cognitions. Thus they form an externalizing marriage or bond. It is externalizing because the man's truth and the wife's affections are both in the externalizing or lower degrees of their consciousness. However, if the two partners continue to grow together and conjoin more deeply within, then they enter phase 2 which is an internal union or conjunction. Now their internalizing parts are conjoined or united--the man's internalizing good and the woman's internalizing truth. Now for the first time the man becomes truly a husband and the woman truly a wife.

In the diagram below, the same process is portrayed. The externalizing union in stage 1 is shown to bond the man's externalizing truth to the wife's externalizing good. This is not so much a true union as a partnership since it resides in externalizing (or lower) parts of the consciousness. Husband and wife as partners are adjoined to each other by externalizing natural life and family, but they are not yet conjoined from within by inner or spiritual life. But in stage 2, the husband's internalizing good is conjoined to the wife's internalizing truth. Now the marriage consists of his affections covered over with her truths. This is a true conjunction or union because it resides in the higher or internalizing regions of their consciousness and life. Only when this stage of internal conjunction is achieved can they be regenerated into a heavenly marriage and live together in eternity.

Note: see a variation of this diagram in another article on Gender Genes.

From Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia

1468. He said to Sarai his wife. That this signifies that He so thought concerning the truths to which celestial things were adjoined, is evident from the signification of Sarai when she is called a wife. A "wife," in the internal sense of the Word, signifies nothing else than truth conjoined with good; for the conjunction of truth with good is circumstanced precisely as is a marriage. In the Word, when a "husband" is mentioned, the husband signifies good, and the wife signifies truth; but when he is not called the husband, but the "man," then he signifies truth, and the wife signifies good: this is the constant usage in the Word, as before said (n. 915). In the passage before us, as Abram is named, Sarai his wife signifies truth. To say thus to Sarai his wife is, in the internal sense, to think so concerning the truths with which celestial things were conjoined. It is historically true that Abram so said to his wife, when journeying into Egypt; but as before said, all the historicals of the Word are representative, and all the words are significative. No other historicals are recorded in the Word, and in no other order, and no other words are used to express them, than such as

in the internal sense may express these arcana.

Couples who do not progress to an internal union of minds or spirits remain separated in their internals, and when they meet again in the other life, they live with one another again for a brief period. They then can become aware of each other's internal character and disposition, and these separate them. Each is then given another partner with whom they can enter into an internal marriage in heaven. But this happens only when both have been regenerated while still in the physical body. If they are unsuitable to each other by internal disposition or genius and separate, the one who is regenerate goes to heaven with the newly given conjugial partner or soul mate, while the other who is not regenerated goes to hell where they enter into an infernal concubinage with a partner. These infernal marriages are purely externalizing and both partners are "devils" who hate each other's guts yet are forced to endure each other in a marriage made in hell.

Leon James (Notes from1987)

Glossary based on Chart

1. Highest content is spiritual. 2. Deepest feelings are male. 3. Highest truths are female. 4. Female will is less deep than male will. 5. Female intellect is higher than male intellect. 6. Spiritual content is the product of male good will

conjoined to female true intellect. 7. Deepest good is male 8. Male love is deeper then female love. 9. The growth of good truth is inward & occurs by adding

layers inwardly or by ascending. 10. The growth of truth is male to female. 11. The growth of good is female to male.

12. Truth develops inwards from an external made of natural content to an internal made of rational content to an inmost mode of spiritual content.

"rational wisdom...is peculiar to the understanding of men, and ascends into a light in which women are not, which is the reason why we do not speak from this wisdom, but in the company of men when such matters are discussed, are silent and only listen." CL 165

= affections are unconscious (silent) yet contain trues

"It is male to perceive from the understanding and female to perceive from love." CL 168

"love does not go beyond what it feels; ...it derives [sight] from conjunction with the understanding of the man" CL 168

= affections perceive spiritual heat; understanding perceives spiritual light

"things that are of light are plainly seen, and things of love are felt" CL 168

(CL 88)

MASCULINE PRINCIPLE TRUTH FROM GOOD (the truth of good)

FEMININE PRINCIPLE GOOD FROM THAT TRUTH (the good of truth)

Swedenborg's PSYCHOBIOLOGY:

Good = substance Truth = form Mind = Good and Truth

Love and wisdom are substance and form DLW 40-44 Love is substance/Taste buds are substance Wisdom is form/Skin sense = substance and form (cells and their reactivity)

USE ----- TOUCH = FUNCTION GOOD ----- VIBRATION/CHEMICALS = SUBSTANCE TRUTH ----- CELL = FORM

Substance and Form originate from GOD-MAN

DIVINE SUBSTANCE = DIVINE LOVE

DIVINE FORM = DIVINE TRUTH

All created things have relation to Man (DLW 61ff)

(in relation to the above relation of Female Son see this article on the Divine.)

Part 2--Spiritual Genes and Marriage Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

Related Articles:

Doctrine of the Wife || Spiritual Geography--Part 2: Jacob's Ladder and Other Psycho-Dynamic Applications|| Spiritual Geography--Part 1-- Graphic Maps of Consciousness for Regeneration || Dual Citizenship || Spiritual Psychology || Spiritual Time and Space || De Hemelsche Leer Article || Theistic Science || Religious Psychology || Discrete Degrees: A Top Down Presentation (Ian Thompson)

CONTENTS

Spiritual Genes Husband's Voluntary Self-Subordination to Wife

in Inner Things Internal and External Marriage

Date: Thu., 14 Mar 1996 02:16:00 -1000 To: leon@hawaii.edu

Subject: Doctrine of the Wife

Hi Leon: One of the problems I have had with the Writings of Swedenborg is the strict division of the male/female natures which at first glance seems to subjugate women to a lesser role both academically and vocationally. One would be that single women would seem to be "incomplete" in their logical abilities, and men incomplete in their ability to love, and interpret lovingly, life seen from this "logic/academic" stance. Can you further enlighten me (with references) if these issues were addressed in the Writings? Also, what implications are there in your Doctrine of the Wife if the married partners divorce?

Hi, Ruth!

Thanks for writing. I am dividing the answer into sections:

Spiritual Genes:

Are they incomplete mentally and spiritually? Yes. Because we reach our full self only as a couple, which is the unit of life in heavenly states. I tell my daughter and son (now in their 20s) that single men and women ought to aspire to the heavenly state and look forward to it, and prepare for it. In the meantime, they ought to relate to the opposite sex (dates, siblings, parent, extended family, boss, etc.) in a way that helps them prepare or anticipate for the conjugial relationship. In this way those who pass on unmarried will thus be ready to meet and unite with their soul-mate in heaven.

If you look at the psycho-spiritual genes of women and men, you can see that they are mutualities or reciprocities. Men on their own lack inner wisdom and external love. Women on their own lack inner love and outer wisdom. Only as a unit do men and women find what they lack on their own. Swedenborg uses the expression "forensics" to refer to men's inborn tendency to put truth or logic ahead of love, and "domestic" to refer to women's inborn tendency to put love ahead of truth or logic. This corresponds to the diagram.

Does this means that men are logical/rational while women are intuitive/affectional? This is a popular argument for discriminating against women in the workplace, the military, the church, and elsewhere. But it is not accurate or valid. It is motivated by the desire to rule over women, to dominate them, to injure them, and so on. Look at the diagram and you'll see that men and women are both and equally made of the logical/rational (truth) and the intuitive/affectional (good).

Externally women and men can do whatever the other gender can do. A man can be motherly; a woman can be fatherly. A man can be domestic; a woman can be forensic. Equal pay for equal work and equal rights for all. That's the external world of society.

Internally women and men can do nothing whatever which the other gender can do! Internally, meaning spiritually, women are wisdoms covered over with loves, while men are loves covered over with wisdoms, as the diagram clearly shows. Every single thing a woman does internally (spiritually), that is, every decision she makes, every desire she has, every thought she has -- contains this genetic blueprint: inner truth packaged as outer love. Similarly, every single thing a man does internally (spiritually), that is, every decision he makes, every desire he has, every thought he has -- contains this genetic blueprint: inner love packaged as outer wisdom.

Summary: Externally, in the world of society and the law, (A) women and men should have equal rights, and (B) women and men overlap in range of abilities and competence. Internally or Spiritually, women and men are the inverse of each other in every feeling, thought, sensation, and action. The overlap is zero. Women appear as loves within which is inner wisdom, while men appear as wisdoms within which is inner love.

What are consequences of this inner difference between men and women? This topic needs further treatment. To anticipate:

In the workplace, women can successfully compete with men but they don't enjoy it like men do. Men often feel enhanced and energized by competition, rough play, and conflict. Women generally don't prefer it and find it stressful and foreign to their inner nature. How wonderful it would be if women, who are in the workforce, were given freedom to transform the workplace to their own liking and inner nature! The workplace would then be a gentler, softer, more humane place, as well as more effective and productive. (Note: I need to deal here with non-typical profiles in both genders. How does that affect the argument?)

In relationships, women appear as loves while men appear as wisdoms. In other words, women appear affectional, intuitive, caring, love-oriented individuals. This is an external appearance as the diagram shows. Internally, women are wisdoms. In other words, women are intellectual/rational in their inner spiritual core -- the love-style is what they wrap this wisdom in. Men on the other hand appear as intellectual/rational, but within their inner core, they are affectional loves. This too is shown by diagram.

In artistic expression, women are complexities within which they wrap in simplicities without. Men are simplicities within which they wrap in complexities without. Thus, a woman's complexity far far outclasses a man's complexity. (Note: I realize I need to expand on all this...later.)

Husband's Voluntary Self-Subordination to Wife in Inner Things:

Husbands ought to comply or go along with their wife in every inner matter between them because wives operate with inner spiritual perception, while husbands are not given this perception. Why? Because otherwise it would never work! Men need this form of control or else they go astray since they have no perception of relationship things: how they affect the wife, how they appear, what goes on inside their motivational structure, and the like. This follows from their spiritual genetic structures, as discussed in the section on Spiritual Genes. Recall from there that women are inner complexities and wisdoms far surpassing that of the husband whose wisdom is relatively external. The inner always surpasses the outer. By this same token, men's loves are stronger, more universal, and deeper than women's loves which are relatively external.

As a result of this spiritual genetic difference, only the wife has clear inner perception of the husband's psycho-dynamics -- how he really feels, what really makes him comfortable or happy, what he is actually ignoring or fearful of, and so on. The wife is a greater expert on the husband than the husband himself! This is the inner meaning of the Adam and Eve story: Adam was lost alone in the Garden (had no perception of relationship things) and God had to give him" an helpmate," meaning a wife who would be given this perception. Adam would now have his happiness, but only in a state of mind where he accepts and loves his wife's sacred

leadership role. These gender differences are created and maintained by the Divine for the sake of building and preserving conjugial love.

Men receive plenty of external logic and wisdom ("forensics") so as to combat the forces of earth. Women are given to be spiritual grand-masters by the Divine. The fact that this secret has been unknown or denied by men (gurus, coaches, trainers, saints, leaders, scientists), only proves how delusional men become ("spiritually insane" according to Swedenborg), when they don't agree to have women guide them, but instead, try themselves to rule over women and dominate them.

Everyone is given to learn these things from the Divine through illustration of one's own experience in relationship with women (mothers, sisters, dates, spouses, coworkers). In my case, Diane has been my faithful helpmate for the past 21 years, and it is only the past two years that she has been able to come out of the tortured state I've kept her in, through my refusal to listen to her or let her guide me. (See my confession.) Now at least she can breathe. For years I used to make her cry at least once a day, every day -- through my rigid, male, self-centered, overbearing behaviors. Diane kept wailing: "You have to love me, Leon!" and I kept repeating like a robot: "But I do love you honey! What's wrong with you?" This was her hell for the first two decades of her life with me -- the man whom she adored and adulated to the highest of her strength (that's what I demanded, she says, so she complied!), and for whom she had given up everything, and with whom she was willing to live in hell till God takes her out of it! Talk about one lucky guy -- yet every wife, from her inner core, is prepared to subjugate herself in this way to "her man." It is an inner compulsion.

Internal and External Marriage

Every couple starts as an external union and then moves inward up to the point of resistance. External unions can be happy and civil in appearance and overt style. Couples can agree not to disagree by avoiding or postponing conflictual decisions or activities. These unions can remain external for the duration of the marriage, up to the death of one of them. Or else, they can move inward, in which case conflict is engendered. The conflict can be resolved if the husband voluntarily subordinates himself to the wife's guidance. With the wife's guidance, the marriage then becomes more and more inward and spiritual. The two then become mentally one. (Note: More on this later.)

Couples who have an internal as well as an external marriage will be together in eternity, according to Swedenborg's eyewitness testimony of heaven. They are being regenerated here. However other possibilities occur: marriages in which one is in conjugial love (almost always the wife) but the other is not. In this case the wife will be united to a soul-mate in heaven (not this husband), while the husband...who knows. It depends if he has suffered the Divine to regenerate him in his life here. These factors imply that divorce is always to be avoided unless there are physical or emotional incompatibilities which one cannot stand, or if there is physical abuse or mental torture. Otherwise, one should continue in the marriage and keep on trying. Even if the marriage fails at the end, those who never give up continue their regeneration here, and enter the heavenly state prepared and ready to be conjoined to their true soul mate. Thus, no time or effort is ever lost!

Response from Ruth: Hi Leon:

What an enlightening message! Having marriage explained that way and especially the woman's role in it MADE MY DAY! I can relate strongly to your own and Diane's struggles with the tendency of males to feel "superior" both in intellect and "decision-making" within a marriage - so I take off my hat to YOU who are one of the real pioneers in acknowledging, but more importantly, APPRECIATING the "wisdom" of love in relationships which a woman has as God-given. In my own case, it was hard to make headway with this

concept when married to a man who embraced (at least in the last l0 years of our marriage) an egalitarian role for women and even championed that cause intellectually, but could never have done the about-face which you have accomplished in your marriage. Congratulations, Leon - your wife may also be justly proud of that accomplishment, and I'm sure your marriage has been enriched TREMENDOUSLY.

Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 15:41:43 -1000 To: leon@hawaii.edu

Subject: Doctrine of the Wife

Dear Leon

Just finished reading your article, " Why the Husband Should Be Servant to the Wife". I must admit, not only was and is my mind blown, by what you advocate, but no other writing, other than Swedenborg's, Writings, have left such a deep sense of conviction in my heart and mind, as this. Thank You!.

I, intend to read and study the remainder of this material and will I become more at ease with responding, I hope to become more frank, in sharing my own personal, shortcomings, as a failed, husband.

Grateful in Florida,

Gehard

Part 3--Definitions From Sacred Scriptures Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

CONTENTS

Doctrinal Propositions Correspondences in the Word Relating to the Doctrine of the Wife THE DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE CHART On the meaning of UNITION, CONJUNCTION, MARRIAGE, RELIGION: Concepts necessary to explain the Doctrine of the Wife Spiritual Physiology of Marriage

Doctrinal Propositions

I. That in celestial man and woman the Divine Truth is received in the form of the celestial Divine, which form is received in our within which is our affection for the genuine good and true.

II. That the aim of all our efforts in the celestial state is solely to bring to our conscious awareness the arcana laid down in our idea of the Divine Human.

III. That our idea of the Divine Human in born in the Divine Good of our remains, which idea contains infinite arcana to be laid out by the Lord gradually in our conscious awareness; this idea is represented by the expression "The Writings of Swedenborg as the Third Testament."

IV. That our idea of the Divine Human is being laid out as Spiritual and Celestial Doctrines which bear names such as "The Doctrine of Faith", "The Doctrine of Life", "The Doctrine of De Hemelsche Leer", "The Doctrine of the Wife", and so on; these Doctrines are represented by the expression "The Third Testament."

V. That the First Five chapters of the Arcana Coelestia signify the celestial degree of the Doctrine of the Wife; that the Fifth Chapter of the Gospel of John signifies the spiritual degree of the Doctrine of the Wife; and that the Twenty-first Chapter of Genesis signifies the natural degree of the Doctrine of the Wife.

VI. That the Four Gospels, in their order, signifies the orderly steps we undergo in our understanding and perception of the Doctrine of the Wife.

VII. That the study explication, and teaching of "The Third Testament", are required daily activities and the scientifics or products thus accumulated constitute useful documents for the development of the Doctrine of the Church and Theistic Science.

"And Jehovah visited Sarah, as He had said; and Jehovah did unto Sarah as He had spoken. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. And she said unto Abraham, Cast out this handmaid and her son; for the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son with Isaac. And the word was evil exceedingly in the eyes of Abraham, on account of his son. And God said unto Abraham, let it not be evil in thine eyes because of the boy, and because of thine handmaid; all that Sarah with unto thee, hearken unto her voice, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Genesis 21:1, 9 12 See also: Arcana Coelestia 2615 2667 and De Hemelsche Leer 5:32 33

Correspondences in the Word Relating to the Doctrine of the Wife

Divine SpiritualNatural

Divine Rational Divine Celestial

APPARENT GOOD

Hagar = affection of rational things (also: Handmaiden)

THE GOOD OF TRUTH

Divine Human (=Divine Rational as to good)

Isaac = celestial rational = affections of spiritual truth and good (also: Heirs) (see also: Laughter)

LOVE AND MERCY

Abraham = the Supreme Divine = Jehovah = Divine Celestial = Divine Good"

APPARENT TRUTH

THE SPIRITUAL

My son

Spiritual truths and goods in bundles (through selective vivification)

Sarah

Divine Truth = Divine Spiritual = Human Divine = His Own Power"

CHURCH

Ishmael (the first rational merely human)

See also: Sons

REASONINGS (knowledges of spiritual things)

Egypt

= memory-knowledges of the Word

CONCEPTS, COGNITIONS, SENSE IMPRESSIONS

AC 2654 The "first rational" is "born by means of knowledges", so that it is only "in appearances of truth" which "are not truths in themselves" and cannot agree with the later arrival of "truths without appearances" or "Divine truths" because it "does not comprehend them" and because it "opposes them". (AC 2654:2)

AC 2657:3 After the apparent trues of the rational have been collected from scientifics, the Lord implants, through affections of spiritual truth and good, pure trues and goods in bundles by a process of selective vivification of those appearances of trues which are in agreement and which favor, while removing to the circumference that does not agree.

The very marriage itself of good and truth, the Lords Kingdom from which is Conjugal Love. (AC 2618)

Birth of Isaac: When the Lords rational was made Divine (AC 2637) Weaning of Isaac: when the merely human rational was separated. (AC 2649)

Order (AC 2649:1):

V.1: The presence of the Divine in the Human for the sake of unition;

V.2: The presence of the Human in the Divine, and thus a reciprocal unition;

V.3: From this unition the Human was made Divine;

V.4: And this successively and continuously while the Lord lived in the world;

V.5: And this commenced when the rational was in a state to receive;

V.6-7: The state of unition, its qualities;

V.8-12: Separation of the maternal human

Notes on Verses

V.1: Chapter 1 Topic: Unition of the Lords Divine with his Human

"What further arcane are enfolded in these words that "Jehovah visited Sarah as He had said," and that "Jehovah did unto Sarah as He had spoken," cannot be declared, because thy are inexpressible; for thy comprise the very state itself of the unition of the Lords Divine with His Human."

See also: Commentary on John 5 for examination of same topic (interior rational)

V.9: AND SARAH SAW = The Lords insight into Divine Truth (AC 2651)

The wifes sincere affections are the Lords insight.

THE SON OF HAGAR THE EGYPTIAN= the merely human rational which was separated after the birth of the Divine rational (because its affections are contrary) (AC 2652) (=Ishmael)

MOCKING= that which does not favor the self and hence is contrary to ones affections = a contrary affection (AC 2654)

ISHMAEL MOCKING (Negative Bias in Science): "The human rational that namely which has its birth form worldly things through impressions of sense and afterwards from analogues of worldly things by means of knowledges is ready to laugh and mock if told that it does not live of itself, but only appears to live so; and that one lives the more, that is the wisely and intelligently, and the more blissfully and happily, the less he believes that the lives of himself." AC 2654: 3

This is the the origin of the negative bias viz., why the Writings are excluded by scientists: the latters empiricism leads to a first rational built up by analogy using natural cognitions based on sense impressions (natural reasoning or philosophy and, science and humanism) (=appearances of truths)

REGENERATION = POSITIVE BIAS (AC 2657:2,3)

In relation to AC 2654:3-7, see also: POSITIVE BIAS and RADICALIST REGISTER

Examples of radicalist assertions:

- We do not live of ourselves but only appear so

- We live best the more we accept this

- We have nothing of our own

- The less we think we have our own the more we have

- Whatever we do from our own is evil

- We are organs of life only (merely human)

- We are not were until we think that all good is from God and perceive that all evil in from hell

- All our wisdom is from angels who are within our true beliefs and right perceptions

- Wisdom is to believe one self to be the least wise

- Greatness is to desire to be least

- Happiness is to desire others to be most happy and oneself the least so

- Heaven is to with to be below all

- Hell is to wish to be above all

- Real truths ("glory of heaven") are pure opposites to appearances of truths ("glory of the world") (2654:5)

- The afterlife if life without space and time but with states which create appearance, of space and time

- Life is the more heavenly when eternal (i.e. apart from space and time)

- The eternal is apart from space and time and cannot be comprehended with concepts based by analogy on space and time

- Life in space/time/matter is less real and blissful than apart from it

V.10: "She said unto Abraham"

= Perception from the Divine = Internal perception

CAST OUT= Banish (the first rational) = REGENERATION: first rational (before regeneration)

Second rational (after regeneration) (AC 2657:2)

"The first, which is before regeneration, is procured through the experiences of the sense, by reflections upon things of civic life and of moral life, and by means of the sciences and the reasonings derived from them and by means of them, also by means of the knowledges of spiritual things from the doctrine of faith or from the Word. But these go no further at that time than a little above the ideas of the corporal memory, which comparatively one quite material (AC 2657:2)

(this is called thinking "by comparison, or analogically")

The second rational is built up by the Lord through selective vivification (AC 2657:3) of those Ishmael trues which "are in agreement and which favor" hence we have this picture:

AC 2657:5 "But as example aid conviction, take as an example that which is mans own before regeneration, and that which is his own after it This first rational cannot apprehend otherwise [thinking truths are his own], even if has been instructed that all the good of love and all the truth of faith are from the Lord. But when man is being regenerated in adult age, then from the other rational he begins to think that the good and truth are not from himself The more he is then confirmed in this, the more is he led into the light of truth till at last he believes that all good and all truth are from the Lord and the man is gifted by the Lord with a heavenly Own, which becomes that of his new rational."

Note: the new Isaac rational has a heavenly Own (i.e. it is Divine) (the human own was removed by selective vivification)

Swedenborg - Kelman Model of Regeneration (AC 2657:6)

COMPLIANCE: The first rational does not comprehend heavenly love but does good from a delight of merit, status, or reword

IDENTIFICATION: The second rational begins to feel some delight in good and truth itself and to be affected by this for the sake of itself and rejects merit as an enormity.

INTERNALIZATION: This delight grows with him step by step and becomes blessed and heavenly

ISHMAEL SHALL NOT INHERIT WITH ISAAC

The merely human is but an organ of life and cannot have life in itself, which is the Lords.

(2658:2) The Lord made the Human in Himself from conception Life Itself, by separating the maternal human altogether (not just removing it to the circumference), and then united this to His Divine. So the Human also was Life Itself, right from conception. This is the meaning of John 5:26.

(AC 2658:3) To Love the Lords life = Life in Itself = To have the Fathers life. (The Divine Itself (infinite))

vs.

To receive life from the Lord in the merely human organ we have from creation (Love and Faith). (Heirs and sons) The Divine that dwells with us (finited)

INHERIT: = Eternal life to all men = To have possession by inheritance (AC 2658:4)

Possession= 1. "To possess by in inheritance" (celestial love) (good) (heirs) ([Yerisha])

"To inherit" (truth) (sons) ([Nachal]) (Spirit love)

"The Lords Divine rational, or His Divine Human, represented by Isaac." (AC 2658:4)

"The Lords Divine Human is the role heir- possessor; as He declares in several places that all things of the Father are His."[(Jehovah Yerisha Jeshu)] (AC 2658: 4)

[See also Comments to John 5]

"He that putteth his trust in Me shall inherit the land, and shall possess by inheritance the mountain of My holiness." Isaiah 57:13

The mountain of My holiness: Heaven, eternal life, conjunction with Divine Human.

Those who trust Me:

"Those who are in love to the Lord and faith in Human" (2658:7)

"Those who are in the Lord"

The Land: land of Canaan = Heaven

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matt 5:5)

The husbands resistance: ON ACCOUNT OF HIS SON

V.11: "And the word was evil exceedingly in the eyes of Abraham, on account of his son." (Genesis 21:10) (AC 2659, 2661) (Greeting out of love for the merely human, first rational)

Evil in the eyes = "A state of grief form love" (2661)

On account of his son

= "That he loved the first rational" (2661)

Note: The Lord gave Sarah and not Abraham, to perceive that Ishmael must be made second and Isaac first. This means that through Divine Doctrine there is perception of the Divine Human. It is through the wife that the husband perceives the Conjugial. Apart from the wife, the husband has no perception of celestial trues. The internal sense of the word is given by the Lord to the husband through his wife. God told Abraham to act according to Sarahs word. This means that the Lord united His Human to His Divine by acting according Divine Truth or the Human Divine, i.e. His Own power. In order for the human race to be saved Abraham had to hearken to Sarah, that is, celestial temptations are won by the husband acting in accordance with his wifes voice, which is the Doctrine of the Wife. "Voice" signifies the trues in her affections.

Then her trues, which are inmost and inexpressible, are externalized in his trues, which are expressible. Then she too can express them. So the Doctrine of the Church is born from the Lord through the wife in the husband and becomes visible in the natural of the husbands expressions and writings.

V.12: (AC 2665) "all that Sarah sayeth unto thee, hearken unto her voice." (Genesis 21:12)

The Doctrine of the Wife is the title chosen for the internal sense of Genesis 21 as outlined in AC 2610-2726.

This diagram summarizes some of he contents of these numbers in the Word of the Third Testament.

The Doctrine of the Wife in defined by the first verse of the Chapter, i.e. it deals with the details of how the Lord united His Human to His Divine through the Divine spiritual, i.e. through Sarah. The Wife is thus the means through which the husband overcomes in celestial temptations and thereby receives the Conjugal in himself from within and which appears (is externalized) as wisdom, perception of Doctrine.

"And Jehovah did unto Sarah" (V.1) signifies the state of unition of "the Lords Divine spiritual in His Divine celestial" which in "the marriage itself of good, from which comes the heavenly marriage" and from whose union is born the Divine Rational, that is, the Divine Human (AC 2618). The Divine Human is thus perceivable when the Conjugal enters the wife internally, into her sincere affections, which are seen by the husband and received by him externally; they constitute for him celestial temptations which he overcomes by hearkening to his wifes voice, i.e. shunning their violation as a sin against the Lords Divine Human. The Divine makes this process visible, and it is confirmed in Genesis 21, John 5, and AC 2610-2726

"As He had spoken" (V.1) (AC 2619): when "Jehovah said" VS. "Jehovah spoke"

Perception from Divine celestial VS. Perception from the Divine spiritual

"With man the case is this: it is good from which he perceives, but it is truth by means of which he thinks." (AC 2679)

TRANSLATION: WITH THE CONJUGIAL COUPLE, IT IS THE HUSBAND FROM WHICH PERCEPTION ORIGINATES (FROM THE LORD) BUT IT IS THE WIFE BY MEANS OF WHICH THOUGHT IS GIVEN.

Reasons

1. Truth= Sarah; good= Abraham 2. Good= perception; truth= thought 3. Wife= source of affection to make truth of life (conjugial) 4. Doctrine= Divine Truth= Church= Sarah= affection to make truth of life= wife 5. Affection= perception, hence wife perceives through truth while husband does not perceive apart from

truth.

" The Divine rational was and came forth from the unition of the Divine spiritual with the Divine celestial of the Lord, when the days were fulfilled for the human to be put off, and when the rational was such as to receive (all of which is signified in the internal sense by Sarahs conceiving and leasing to Abraham a son to his old age at the appointed time)" (AC 2625:4)

"Some idea of this [process of putting off the human] may be formed from what takes place in those who are being regenerated when by means of them [love and faith implanted successively] the mans rational has become such that it can receive, then for the most part by means of temptations in which he conquers." (AC 2625:5)

A son/rational = Isaac = Abraham Divine Itself (celestial)

+ Sarah unition = conceives (Divine Essence)

+ Human Divine (Spiritual) (Human Essence)

DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE--Symbolism

ABRAHAM + SARAH = ISAAC (GENESIS 21)

FATHER AND SON = JESUS (JOHN 5)

In the Word = GOOD AND TRUTH = Doctrine of Life (Swedenborg)

Isaac= The Divine Human (Old Testament)

Jesus= The God of Heaven and earth (New Testament)

Doctrine of Life= Regeneration through temptations (Third Testament)

Old Testament = natural temptations

New Testament = spiritual temptations

Third Testament = celestial temptations

Celestial temptations are overcome when:

i. The husband receives the wifes trues in his affections by obedience and harmonizing in his will

ii. In understanding, by transforming her trues in the affections into his trues from his affections.

1. conjugial enters wifes affections from which she has PERCEPTION (INTUITION within)

2. Wifes affections are internalized as inexpressible wisdom (Divine Truth), (Human Divine) 3. Husbands affections (celestial temptations) receive wifes inexpressible wisdom (Divine Truth),

(Human Divine) 4. Doctrine is born in his thoughts as a result of (3) (Divine Human). This is Isaac, the Divine Rational the

Divine Human, the Divine Doctrine of the Church with us, with our new will and understanding therefrom.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WIFE CHART

The wifes superiority (i.e. priority) lies in her deeper vision of the husbands celestial temptations. This deeper vision gives her infallible judgment over matters involving her husbands celestial temptations. The Doctrine of the Wife makes visible that the domain of the wifes superiority is in the husbands celestial temptations. As well, it makes visible that she is not in a superior position regarding matters involving spiritual and natural temptations.

Unless it is known what kind of temptation one is in--celestial, spiritual, or natural one world not know when the wifes has infallible judgment. Every regenerating husband has areas of celestial temptations and these become increasingly visible as he overcomes natural and spiritual temptations apart from the wife.

The content of celestial temptations in general deals with natural things from the rational, i.e., PSYCHO-POLITICS OF USES IN EVERYDAY LIFE. In this battle the first rational (Ishmael) is favored by the husbands natural inclinations and opposes ("mocks") the second rational (Isaac) conceived within the wifes affections and judgment (Sarah) and to be received by the husband (Abraham). When the husband overcomes as of self his inmost resistance to his wifes vision/perception of truth (judgment) [=Abraham hearkens unto Sarahs voice] then, and only then, can he form DOCTRINE (Jacob bowing to Esau as Lord).

To a spiritual man there is great delight in the Doctrine of the Church he forms along with other men of the Church. His delight in Doctrine is greater than his delight in his wife. Adam was more delighted in his proprium (Eve) than in the Lords leading (celestial Adam). It is of the Lords Mercy to will that the spiritual man discover the presence of this Doctrine within his wife so that his wife may be as delightful as the Doctrine to him, yeah, more delightful. Thus he becomes celestial, for to the husband of the celestial Church, the wife is the greatest delight of all. At last, she becomes for him the sole genuine doorway to the Lord Himself. As he thus takes on more and more splendiferous aspects, she radiates more and more with an even deeper light of wisdom.

On the meaning of UNITION--CONJUNCTION--MARRIAGE--RELIGION--Concepts necessary to explain the Doctrine of the Wife

1. Eve is our won proprium, our natural self or self-conscious existence, the essential of which is the feeling of as-of self, i.e. "it is I who thinks, it is I who feels, it is I who decides, it is I who wishes, etc." Prior to the state of Eve, human beings lived in an earthly paradise, directly led by angels and spirits, of whom they were consciously aware. However, at one stage people began to experience the desire to be led by their own self so as to be able to plan their future and explore in unknown areas, and less by inner instinct. The making of Eve is that delight we have when this desire for independence is satisfied by the Lord. A certain spiritual darkness is necessary for this; human beings would no longer possess infallible judgment by instinct as animals do also. But a new danger is now present: the Snake.

2. The darkening of the spiritual world to human beings on earth (called the Fall), brought on both natural freedom and spiritual slavery. This was not a necessary outcome. The spiritual decline occurred only when people began to doubt the Word of God as preserved is Sacred Scriptures given to every culture, society, and tribe in the form of religious traditions or church. With the decline of the church came false beliefs, which led to a lack of wisdom in practical life. Social life then became "a problem"

and required historical characteristics such as wars, famine, sickness, competition, injustice, deceit, conflict, discord, unhappiness, and hate.

However a means of salvation was provided in advance by the Lord: regeneration through temptations. All men and women who want to compel their natural self to a life in obedience to their religion, gradually receive a new conscious rational perception of spiritual realities.

3. Regeneration is effected through temptations. As temptations are overcome in spiritual battles of conscience vs. desire, we begin to construct a new conscious self, one composed of rational elements only. Rational elements are within and above natural elements (by Creation). Rational ideas are abstracted from space-time concepts; or, space-time concepts are external elements within which there is a controlling agency called the spiritual. Our innate rational cognitions are capable of conjoining to the spiritual elements so that we can feel them as part of our self from within. This felling from within constitutes a new experience, a new inner sense, a new birth, a regeneration of an old sense that human beings possessed prior to the Fall. The formation of this new rational self which can sense eternal trues as a self-conscious ability is called the formation of the Church within us. For further explanations on the sensuous vs. rational consciousness, see this article.

Spiritual Physiology of Marriage

Step 1) the wifes external mind, which is outer love, conjoins and appropriates the husbands external mind, which is wisdom.

Step 2) the husbands internal mind, which is inner love, conjoins and appropriates the wifes internal mind, which is inner wisdom.

External Mind = Memories of people, places, events, things, honors, reputation, books.

Internal Mind = Memories of loves, likes, affections, preferences, needs, wants.

CONJUGIAL LOVE External Internal

Love Desire to conjoin, share, and be first to each other.

to raise a family and make each other happy

to be one angel in heaven

Wisdom Seeing what is true vs. fiction in society, work place, art, science, religion

in relationships and character

ADAM and EVE=MAN and WOMAN= HUSBAND and WIFE

RIB= Mans own wisdom from natural truth.

BUILT RIB INTO A WOMAN= When woman becomes wife, the husbands own wisdom from natural truth is "transcribed into" her, through which she senses his affections of the will which she "moderates" unbeknownst to him and "appropriates" to herself through loving it, and which then is in her as an "image" of his inmost.

Stage 1: {MAN--BOY}= "receptacle" (masculine mind) (organ) for wisdom, from influx.

{WOMAN--GIRL}= "receptacle" (organ) for love of that wisdom, from influx (feminine mind)

Step 2: (HUSBAND & WIFE) = TWAIN SHALL BE ONE FLESH

= Act, think, feel as one person = CONJUGIAL LOVE = Fruition of all inner potentials to eternity

Stage 1: MAN--BOY: C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

WOMAN--GIRL: A3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

Stage 2 MARRIAGE

HUSBAND: A3, C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

WIFE: A3, C3, S3, A2, C2, S2, A1, C1, S1

Fig. 1: The Psychobiology of Sex and Marriage Or DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY

*A III= Husband appropriates wifes love of husbands wisdom

*CIII= Wife appropriates husbands wisdom

*S III= Fruition of higher inner potentials

MARRIAGE AS PSYCHIATRY--Healing of the soul and mind

1. NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE

= Not good for man to love his own wisdom hence himself.

2. THEREFORE ? WIFE FROM HIS RIB WHILE HES ASLEEP

= He, as husband, can now love his wifes love of his wisdom as he appropriates her love of his wisdom though he cannot discern this since she hides it.

3. Instead he thinks he woos her and that his love in her while in fact her love is in him and she manages to have him believe she is obedient and receptive when yet she is active and volitional.

4. From this exchange of appropriation the two become one and come into all the potentials not otherwise available ("conjugal love" and its "heavenly felicity").

Correspondences from Genesis

MAN LEAVING FATHER AND MOTHER

= Stop loving his own loves (father = will) and his won wisdom (mother = understanding), born evil inclination.

CLEAVING TO HIS WIFE

= Devotion to her = Loving her = Receiving her love of him (his affections and wisdom), which love she has from birth (influx).

MARRIAGE

= Spiritual reunion of man and womans interiors = Becoming one flesh or one person or one angel.

The Lords Kingdom

LOVE

FIRST ENDS

WISDOM

CAUSES

USES

ULTIMATES

DIVINE CELESTIAL

GOOD VS. EVIL

face, gold, flame, fire, bread, fat, beasts, lambs

GOOD OF LOVE

red, purple, black, lamp stand

TRUTH FROM GOOD OF LOVE

head, white, wool

DIVINE GOOD IN ULTIMATES

HIGHEST or

INMOST

DIVINE SPIRITUAL

TRUTH VS. FALSITY

sheet, fish, birds, silver

GOOD OF TRUTH

water, wine, scarlet, brown, eyes

TRUTH OF FAITH

snow, linen, hair, beard, raiment, garment, breast

DIVINE TRUTH IN ULTIMATES

MIDDLE INTERNAL

NATURAL DEGREES OF THE DIVINE

fig, oil, serpent, burnished brass,

copper, sides

NATURAL GOOD

blue, green, yellow, tree, iron, legs,

vessels

leaf, star, waters, dust, clay, feet, shoe, footstool, historical Word,

cloud

KNOWLEDGES

LOWEST or

OUTMOST

OF GOOD AND TRUTH

INMOST MIDDLE INTERNAL OUTMOST EXTERNAL

Masculine and Feminine Receptacle: Wisdom=Masculine while Love=Feminine

S C A A C S

LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC LIFE

WISDOM IN MATURE LIFE &

OLD AGE

LOVE OF BECOMING WISE

FROM CONJUGIAL LOVE

LOVE OF WISDOM IN MAN

FEMININE WISDOM

LEADERSHIPIN FAMILY

OCCUPATIONS, CIVICS,

CHASTE LOVE OF SEX,

INTELLIGENCE & UNDERSTANDING

IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD

LOVE OF UNDERSTANDING FROM WOMANS

LOVE OF

LOVE OF UNDERSTANDING

IN MAN FEMININE

UNDERSTANDING

DOMESTICACTIVITIESCHILDREN,

CHASTE

Counterclockwise= HISTORICAL DECLINE OF AGES

Clockwise= INDIVIDUAL PROCESS OF REGENERATION

The Psychobiology of Regeneration

Taxonomy of Love

Religious Behavior

SEMEN UNDERSTANDING IN MAN

LOVE OF SEX,

PREGNANCY

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES,

ROUGH BODY, NATURAL

LOVE OF SEX

KNOWLEDGE & ACQUISITION OF IT IN CHILDHOOD

LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE

FROM WOMANS LOVE OF

KNOWLEDGE IN MAN

LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE IN MAN

FEMININE KNOWLEDGE

DELICATE HANDWORKSOFT BODY

NATURAL LOVE OF

SEX

S C A A+ C+ S+ Heaven & Hell

Deformations & Evils &

Degeneration

Spiritual Insanity,

Atheism, Idol Worship

Scortatory Love (love of many of the sex)

III Conjugal Love (love of

one of the sex only)

Wisdom & Intelligence

Uses as Beauty &

Harmony & Progress

Ends

Societal Strife Immortality

Idleness Injustice

Irrationality & Vastation

(Flash floods)

Love of Deception, Cunning

II Love of Wisdom, Faith, & Truth &

Sincerity &

Rationality & Understanding

of Truths

Civics, Management,

Morality, Societal Peace,

Justice

Spiritual World

Fairness Delights of the Senses that

satiate & fade with time

Fantasy Life, Magic,

Superstition, Obscenity

Love of Gain & Self above other

Loves

I Love of Knowledge,

Curiosity Love of

neighbor equal with

self

Natural History Science, Art,

Drama, Poetry

Super Keen Delights of the Senses that remain fresh

forever

Earth