Week 6    Day 1

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Greed and Avarice Depicted

Greed and Avarice Depicted

CL 267. I entered a certain grove and was walking around there, in meditation on those who are in the lust and thence in the fantasy of possessing the things which are of the world, when at some distance from me I saw two angels conversing together, and by turns looking at me. Therefore I went nearer, and as I approached they spoke to me and said, “We perceive within us that you are meditating on what we are saying....”

[2] And so I asked them what was the subject of their conversation. They said they were speaking of fantasy, of lust, and of intelligence, and just now about those who delight themselves with the vision and imagination of possessing all things in the world. I then asked them to express their minds on those three, lust, fantasy, and intelligence.

Beginning their conversation, they said that everyone is interiorly in lust from birth, but exteriorly in intelligence by education. And no one is in intelligence interiorly, that is in spirit, except from the Lord. “For everyone is withheld from the lust of evil and kept in intelligence according to his looking to the Lord and at the same time conjunction with Him. Without this, man is nothing but lust; but still in externals, or as to the body, he is in intelligence from education. For man lusts after honors and riches, or eminence and wealth, and he does not attain these two unless he appears moral and spiritual, thus intelligent and wise; and therefore, from infancy he learns to appear so....

[3] “Hence every man who is not inwardly led by the Lord is a dissembler, a deceiver, a hypocrite, and thus an apparent man and yet not a man. Of him it may be said that his shell or body is wise and his kernel or spirit insane, and that his external is human and his internal bestial.... They who are in the love of the world desire to possess all things of it, and they grieve and are envious if any of its treasures lie hidden with any others. To the end therefore, that such people may not become mere lusts, and thus not human, it is given them in the natural world to think from fear of the loss of reputation, and thus of honor and gain, and also from fear of the law and its penalty. And it is also given them to apply the mind to some study or occupation, by which they are kept in their externals, and thus in a state of intelligence, however delirious and insane they are inwardly.”

[4] “...Into this delirium a man is let after death who has withdrawn his spirit from the body, and who was not willing to withdraw from the delight of the delirium by thinking anything from religion about evils and falsities, and still less anything about the unbridled love of self, that it is destructive of love of the Lord, and about the unbridled love of the world, that it is destructive of love towards the neighbor.”

CL 268. After this a desire came upon the two angels and also on me to see those who from love of the world are in the visionary lust or fantasy of the possession of all riches. Consequently we looked at each other and said, “Let's go.” Their abodes were under the earth beneath our feet, yet above hell. And an opening appeared and a stairway there. By this we descended....

[2] And behold, there appeared a dwelling constructed of reeds, and thus full of chinks, standing in a thick cloud which flowed continually, like smoke, through the chinks of three of the sides. We entered and saw fifty here and fifty there sitting on benches. And being turned away from the east and south, they looked towards the west and north. In front of each one was a table, and on the table bulging purses, and around the purses an abundance of gold coins.

We asked them, “Are these the riches of all in the world?” They said, “Not of all in the world, but of all in the kingdom.” Their speech had a hissing sound. They appeared to have round faces, which had a reddish glow like a snail-shell; and the pupils of their eyes glittered as it were on a field of green, which was from the light of fantasy. We stood in the midst of them and asked, “Do you believe that you possess all the riches of the kingdom?” They responded, “We do possess them.” Then we asked, “Which of you?” They answered: “Each one.” And we asked, “How [can] each one? You are many.” They said, “Each one of us knows that all his are mine. It is not permitted anyone to think, still less to say ‘Mine are not yours,’ but he may think and say ‘Yours are mine.’”

The coins on the table appeared as of pure gold, even to us. But when we let in light from the east, they were little grains of gold which by common united fantasy they thus magnified. They said that everyone who entered there had to bring some gold with him, which they divide into small bits, and these into little grains, which by the unanimous power of fantasy they enlarge into coins of larger form.

[3] Then we said, “Were you not born men of reason? Where did you get this visionary foolishness?” They said, “We know that it is an imaginary vanity, but as it delights the interiors of our minds we come in here and are delighted as if from the possession of all things. But we do not remain here except for a few hours, and when these hours are passed, we go out and just as often a sound mind returns to us. But yet, from time to time our visionary pleasure comes over us and makes us periodically come in again, and periodically go out, so that we are alternately wise and insane. We know also that a hard lot awaits those who craftily deprive others of their goods.” We asked, “What lot?” They said, “They are swallowed up and cast naked into some infernal prison where they are made to work for clothing and for food, and after that, for a few small coins, which they collect, and on which they set their heart’s joy. But if they do evil to their companions, they are made to give up a part of their little coins as a fine.”

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