Week 5    Day 5

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A Whoremonger’s Internal and External

CL 477. I heard a certain spirit, a young man recently from the world, boasting of his scortations¹, and desiring to gain praise because he was a man more masculine than others. And among the effronteries of his boasting, he put forth this: “What is more dismal than to imprison a man’s love and live with only one? And what more delightful than to let the love go free? Who does not tire of one only? And who is not enlivened by many? What is sweeter than promiscuous liberty, variety, deflorations, deceiving husbands, and scortatory hypocrisies? Do not these, which are got by cunning, deception, and stealthy arts, delight the inmosts of the mind?”

[2] Those standing by hearing these things said, “Do not speak in this way. You do not know where you are, and with whom you are. You are a newcomer here. Under your feet is hell, and above your head is heaven. You are now in a world that is intermediate between these two, which is called the world of spirits. All who depart out of the world come into this world and are gathered here and explored as to their quality; and the evil are prepared for hell and the good for heaven. Perhaps you still remember from priests in the world that whoremongers and harlots are cast down into hell, and that chaste married partners are taken up into heaven.”

The newcomer laughed at this, and said, “What is heaven? And what is hell? Is it not heaven where one is free? And is he not free who can love as many as he pleases? And is it not hell where one is a slave? And is he not a slave who is obliged to cling to one?”

[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard these things and interrupted his speech, that he might go no further in profaning marriages, and said to him, “Come up here and I will show you to the life what heaven is, and what hell is, and what hell is like to confirmed whoremongers.”

And he showed the way, and the young man went up. And after reception he was led first into a paradisal garden where were fruit trees and flowers, which with their beauty, pleasantness, and fragrance filled the mind with the delights of life; when he saw them he admired with great admiration.

But he was then in the external sight in which he had been when he saw analogous things in the world, and in this sight he was rational. But in his internal sight, in which scortation took the lead and occupied every point of thought, he was not rational. Therefore, his external sight was closed and his internal sight opened. When it was opened, he said, “What do I see now? Is it not straw and dry wood? And what do I now perceive? Is there not a disgusting smell? Where now are the things of paradise?”

The angel said, “They are near and are even present, but they do not appear to your internal sight, which is scortatory, for this turns heavenly things into infernal ones and sees only their opposites. Every man has an internal and an external mind, and so an internal and an external sight. With evil men the internal mind is insane, and the external is sane. But with the good the internal is sane, and from that the external is sane also. And as the mind is, so man sees objects in the spiritual world.” ....

[6] But he was brought yet again into his external state of mind, and virgins were brought before him, who were beautiful because they were images of heavenly affection. And with the sweet voice of their affection, they spoke to him. And then from the very sight and hearing of them, his countenance changed and of himself he returned into his internals, which were scortatory. And because these internals could not bear anything of heavenly love, and on the other hand they could not be endured by heavenly love, they both vanished, the virgins from the sight of the man and the man from the sight of the virgins.

[7] After this the angel instructed him where these inversions of his state of vision came from, saying, “I perceive that in the world from which you have come you were double, one man in internals and another in externals. In externals you were a civil, moral, and rational man, while in internals you were neither civil, nor moral, nor rational, because you were a whoremonger and adulterer....

“And you must know that with everyone here the externals are successively closed and the internals opened, and in that way they are prepared for heaven or for hell. And because the evil of scortation, more than any other evil, fouls the internals of the mind, you cannot but be brought down to the filthy things of your love, and these are in hells where the caverns stink with excrements. Who cannot know, from reason, that the unchaste and lascivious in the spiritual world is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing more pollutes and befouls a man and brings what is infernal into him? Beware then that you glory no more in your scortations, that in them you are a man more masculine than others. I foretell you that you will become impotent to such a degree that you will scarcely know where your manhood is. Such a lot awaits those that glory in the potency of scortations.”

After hearing this the young man descended and returned to the world of spirits, and to his former associates there, and spoke modestly and chastely with them, but yet not long.

¹ whoring, adulterous behavior, licentiousness

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