[아내론] 3. The Unregenerate Husband

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by L. James

3. The Unregenerate Husband

The husband in his internal mind sanctifies marriage when he acknowledges, confirm‎s, and lives in accordance with the Doctrine of the Wife. This Doctrine is a Spiritual Doctrine because it is drawn from the Letter of the Writings, as explained throughout this Section. The Doctrine of the Wife is addressed to husbands and is phrased as follows:

RULE 1:

The first and only rule is that husbands are to learn to love acting from the wife, more than from self.

There are no other rules except those that follow from this one rule. You can see that this is a Divine Rule when you reflect on the Adam and Eve story in the Word of the Old Testament, as it is explained scientifically in the Word of the Writings (xx). This rational explanation shows that the spiritual sense of Adam is the husband, and more specifically, the content of the husband’s will and understanding, whether from self and hell or from the Lord and heaven. The state of mind of Adam, prior to Eve’s apparition, was loving himself, loving his self-intelligence, loving his manly prerogatives that take precedence over women, loving to intimidate women and make them serve him, motivated to go after what he is interested at the neglect of what he is to take care of.

This is called the husband’s unregenerate state. Today in North America and Western Europe, just about every woman goes through a Christian wedding with an unregenerate man, and then in the ensuing years, has to cope with an unregenerate husband. An unregenerate husband is how we know ourselves prior to much progress in regeneration. The majority of husbands alive on this planet today would, I expect, reject Rule 1 as a Divine commandment from God, addressed to them, and by which they are to live, or else be unable to live in heaven, assuming they even believe in the afterlife.

This “or else” is not said as a threat, punishment, or warning. It is a scientific statement about the mind’s organic properties that we are to know about, just as we know about the physical body that vitamin C fortifies its capacity to resist an invading virus. If our immune system fails and we get the flu for which we were vaccinated, is it reasonable to say that we are being punished, or being unlucky? Scientifically we can see that the immune system is very complex, hardly known, and vaccination is only a partial assist to the immune system. Failure of our system is not attributed to our stupidity, since we went to get the vaccination, and we practiced medically recommended washings and inhibitions.

It is exactly parallel with the mind, as it is to the body, since everything in the body is a mere correspondence of that which is in the mind or spirit of every human being. Whether we say mind or spirit, it is the same, for what is the spirit except what the mind is, when we know that our affections are located and live in the organ of the will, and our thoughts are located and live in the organ of the understanding. These two organs make up the mind, and they make up the spirit, for there is nothing in the spirit except affections and thoughts (xx).

You can now see that if we are denied entry into heaven, it is not a punishment for misdeeds on earth. For example, if you are denied entry at a customs office or check point, it is not a punishment for your race or your legal status as a lawful citizen of a recognized nation. Instead, you don’t have your medical vaccination certificate with you, something that you know is required to be shown to gain legal entry. It is exactly parallel to your being denied entry into heaven. It’s not that your past misdeeds have been found out at the gate, and now a judgment has been rendered against you, and condemned to hell—for there is no other place available when we are denied entry to heaven!

If it’s not because of our past misdeeds, why are we not admitted to heaven?

The answer is that we are admitted, but before we can our second step at the entrance gate, we are seized by mental pangs and inner torture of the most intense and unpleasant kind. We are desperate to stop it, and it stops the moment we cast ourselves down to the lower regions of our mind. This makes sense if you think of the mind and the spiritual world as exactly alike. Heaven is the uppermost region in the spiritual world, and hell is the lowest region there. Similarly, with the human mind: the highest region of the human mind is a heavenly state of life, bliss, love, consciousness, and understanding of truths and reality. This is why the Lord said that the heaven is within us (xx). So it is the same thing whether we say “entering heaven” or “entering our heavenly or celestial state of humanity.”

In the same way, hell is within us, at the lowest region of the human mind. Entering hell therefore means sinking into the lowest form of the human mind—corporeal spirituality in which there are no rational truths whatsoever. The outward life of this hellish mentality shows as hatred, cruelty, selfishness, foolishness and stupidity, insanity, grossness, vulgarity, immorality, and devoid of any artistry or aesthetics. Denied entry into heaven and casting oneself out upon arrival, is just a correspondence idea for the actual reality, which is that we are then made of a mind or spirit whose will is filled with affections that are suffocated by any rational-spiritual idea or lifestyle.

If you were able to force your rebellious adolescent to believe and accept the Ten Commandments and the Numbers of the Writings that you quote to them, what would happen? The poor individual would be so tortured that it would be an inhuman way for you to treat anyone like that. Instead, you have to give up the idea of forcing the adolescent to accept the necessity of the Commandments and related lifestyle behaviors. The Lord does likewise, never forcing any person to accept and live by His Commandments. This guarantees that we always stay in a mental balance that allows us to freely choose our willing and thinking. This is the unregenerate Adam whose willing and thinking is biased in favor of his own proprium, his own ego, his own way of thinking, his own things that he likes to do, and that he doesn’t like to do and doesn’t want his wife to interfere. This is the unregenerate husband who loves himself above his wife.

The wife is in his eyes always less than himself, in all things.

Therefore she knows that she is nowhere his first. As a result, she knows, perceives, and senses that he is not hers. He is officially her husband, but not actually. A wife has enlightenment from the Lord in sensing these conjugial matters (xx). By this enlightenment, the wife can lead her unregenerate husband into undergoing reformation. He resists and opposes her directions. Thus she feels unhappy, lonely, and desperate. At last he is willing to apply his skills and intelligence as a man to his own marriage. He begins to listen to her at times. In those times, he feels happy. It’s a new feeling, a new state. Now he decides to undergo reformation. He studies the Writings, builds it up into a Doctrine in his mind, and starts dumping things that are contrary to the Letter of the Writings.

His mind rearranged and reordered by the Writings, he is a reformed man, a New Church mind-to-be. He now begins regeneration which will go until the end. But long before that, the husband will feel what is to be in an elevated state, in a conjugial state, and this will be all the sensuous proof he will ever need to the rational truths that are in his understanding and consciousness.

1. The Appearance Of Eve

The appearance of Eve as a correspondence to the New Church mind, marks the first time that the unregenerate husband is seized with the determination to undergo reformation and regeneration as a Divine Commandment of the Writings, hence the Lord. His wife seen through Rule 1 is the appearance of Eve. This is what it means for the husband to reform and regenerate. If he could do it by himself, would he not have done so already? How long can he believably claim that his wife is not unhappy, and that if she is, it is not his fault, thus not something that he could change, but refuses to do so because he is in love with himself. This self-love takes precedence over her, shuts her out, turns her from a wife into a whore to whom he is married. Therefore she feels used, disrespected, denigrated, injured, worthless, thrown away.

But then the husband is seized with remorse and pity for her. He gets a glimpse of his monstrous selfishness. He feels moved to repentance and change by his conscience and by higher and deeper feelings he didn’t even know he was able to have. He now turns to the Word and studies the Writings. He worships the Letter of it as Divine. He undergoes reformation and sees that his male prejudices, his male prerogatives and perks, his male belief systems—all of it, must be thrown away as dirty dish water or water that runs off an agricultural field that is poisoned with insecticides and deadly chemicals.

As he is reformed he begins to see the literal sentences of the Writings in a deeper way because he is honest enough to want to apply them to himself. At first this is only a very general sort of application and shows mostly in terms of his declarations of support for Rule 1 and its sub-rules or applications. His wife continues to suffer silently within herself, but she is encouraged by his new declarations that sound genuine. Especially is she comforted and reassured by the fact that he is now willing to accept Rule 1 as a Divine Commandment for himself. She feels inward reassurance because he now puts the Lord into the marriage, for the first time.

2. External Reformation Vs. Internal Regeneration

Studying the Writings gives us an understanding of what is a thing or object. Every created thing is created into a Divine order of discrete degrees (xx). Every object is distinct and has an outside and an inside. This is the definition of a thing or object. It must have two properties to be a created object. One is that must be distinct form any other created thing. The other is that it has an outside and an inside. Thus existential duality is built into the universe. For instance, a fruit has an outside peel and an inside flesh. A rock has an outside surface and an inside structure or matrix. The Word has an outside Letter and an inside meaning. A government has an outside cohort of elected and appointed officials, and an inside authority of making laws that apply to all citizens. A marriage has an outside legal and social reality in the community, and an inside mental or spiritual reality in the mind of the husband and wife.

The husband has a mind which has an outside portion and inward portion. The outward portion of his mind is called natural and the inward portion is called spiritual. The mind has two organs: the will and the understanding. Each of these organs must therefore have an outward portion and an inward portion, like the heart and the lungs whose outside walls are made of different types of muscle structures or membranes than the inside of their walls. At birth the outward portion of the mind, which is natural, grows into a deformed pattern as it matures. The inward portion, which is spiritual, remains undeveloped until reformation. At reformation we use the power in the Letter of the Writings to reorder or priorities, rearrange our goals, reconstruct our definitions, radically changing our justifications and orientation. Now Eve appears on the scene, and we acknowledge Rule 1 as a Divine Commandment to which we are committed out of fear of hell and love of heaven.

Reformation takes place in the outside portion of the mind. The order in this portion of the mind is a model of hell, from heredity and culture (xx). It is filled only with nondualities, as discussed in Volume 1. Without the Letter of the Writings, taken up into our natural-rational understanding as Doctrine with a Divine authority, we could not undergo reformation. Our acknowledgement that the Doctrine in our conscious understanding is Divine, becomes the condition which the Lord has specified, for being regenerated. That is, for removing the evil affections from hell, and planting new affections from heaven. The part of the husband who displays these new affections, is the man whom the wife recognizes as her conjugial husband. When this man is around her, she is in her joy of life.

But the bad guy husband always seems to return unexpectedly and suddenly, especially when she “crossed an invisible line” that he built in his mind and maintains for himself. Like a Jekyll and Hyde masquerade, the husband alternates between treating his wife with evil and treating her with good. He is still not reformed in many areas of his relationship. He is only reformed in some areas, those areas that he will allow. And so his wife languishes, begging the Lord to return the conjugial husband to her.

But while he is oscillating between these two states of order and disorder, the husband’s spiritual mind is being opened and implanted by the Lord. This is an unconscious process of the Lord and heaven in our mind. Simultaneously, the Lord creates an interior portion within the man’s natural-rational mind. This interior portion is called the interior-natural mind and it is capable of spiritual consciousness. This process has been described in detail in Volume 2.

Regeneration begins in the areas of the husband’s mind in which he was willing to undergo reformation. While he remains in an unregenerate state in some areas, he is making progress in regeneration in other areas. Now for the first time he begins to change in the inward portions of his mind. The outside portion of his mind consists of his corporeal, sensuous, and natural-rational portions. The inward portion consists of his interior-natural mind that the Lord build within his natural-rational mind. The husband himself is in full charge of his natural-rational mind, but only the Lord is in charge of the interior-natural mind. The husband therefore owns his external mind, but the Lord owns his interior mind. To regenerate means that the husband compels his external mind to align itself with the interior mind. In other words, he compels his conscious willing and thinking all day long to conform to the spiritual truths kept in his interior-natural mind by the Lord. In effect, this result is that the Lord now rules the man, to the extent that the man compels his willing and thinking to conform to the spiritual truths he can perceive. These perceptions of spiritual truths constitute his spiritual understanding of the spiritual topics he reads in the Letter of the Writings (as explained in Volume 2).

In this way portions of the husband are regenerated from the interior to the external, and these portions give the husband an ability for conjugial love. The wife is now completely reassured. She can now see that her husband knows and wants to unite with her from within, that is, with the external portion of his mind under obedience from the interior portion. She sees that her husband wants now to be ruled by the Lord. And this is the condition for conjugial love and internal unity.

You can see from this scientific and medical account of regeneration that Rule 1 is nothing but a behavioral method by which the husband can engineer his regeneration. His mind starts in a disorder, prior to the appearance of his wife as Eve, his help mate in regeneration. When he lives his life by Rule 1 the husband is actualizing his wife as his spiritual help mate. Rule 1 is his lifeline, his ticket to her heaven, which is his ritual inheritance form the Lord, his Land of Canaan in which he can be an angel of the Lord. Conjugial couples in heaven are called an Angel. But not an individual without his conjugial life. This is why angel husbands discussing with each other appear to be alone by external appearance, but in actuality they are each with their wife. Swedenborg has witnessed this phenomenon, as the wife appeared to be standing behind a transparent wall, when permitted to see it (xx).

Rule 1 guarantees that the regenerating husband will enter into the inner marriage, that is, the external marriage within which is the spiritual marriage. The external marriage is the social and legal form of it, hence also the body and the external behaviors and interactions visible to others if they are present. The internal marriage is the spiritual form of the marriage within the external form. A couple may appear compatible and friendly to one another, while inwardly there is disagreement and enmity. Rule 1 is a method for eliminating this inward disagreement and enmity the husband feels towards his wife. By following Rule 1 as a Divine Commandment, the husband gains the power to gain control over his willing and thinking, forcing these to conform and obey Rule 1.

In other words, whenever he disagrees with his wife’s explicit or implied requests, he compels his outward behavior and appearance to obey her request. This by itself would be mere hypocrisy, ultimately to fail, if he did not also agree with himself that he owes allegiance to Rule 1 from the Lord, not from himself. Therefore the husband cannot justify going against Rule 1 at any time he so wishes because some line he defined has been crossed by his wife’s request. This would make a shambles out of Rule 1 and the Doctrine he has from the Letter of the Writings. Therefore he has no other option but to continue to compel himself to obey Rule 1 as a Divine Commandment. IN this way the inward unity with his wife can go forward gradually and cumulatively over the years of his regeneration.

3. Leave Mother and Father And Cleave To The Wife

Marriage is the state of spiritual growth between a wife and a husband. There are two phases to this growth, external and internal, or, growth in the external mind and growth in the internal mind. In the external mind, marriage is masculinized and, in society, this is equivalent to the popular notion that it’s a man's world. But in the internal phase, which comes next, the husband through living the Doctrine of the Wife feminizes marriage. Thus from a man’s world society is transformed into a feminine world, more gentle, more interior in intelligence, and nearer to the Lord’s intelligence and character. In the Writings it is stated that the Divine Proprium, which refers the Lord’s Character, is the all in heaven and the angels are given to adopt or assume this Proprium as-if their own (AC 8409).

In their conversations with Swedenborg the inhabitants of the highest of the three heavenly Kingdoms said that they actually have a living perception of the Lord’s influx (HH 8). The Lord inflows into their internal mind with Divine Good and Truth, the good into their will and the truth into their understanding. They attribute all their intentions and ideas to this Divine influx. They also said that the instant they close themselves off to this influx in favor of their own intentions and ideas, they experience a sudden drop, whereupon heaven disappears for them and they are in a lower spiritual realm. But the instant they turn themselves again to the Lord and admit Him by influx, they experience an elevation of the mind and they find themselves again in their heaven. Paradoxically, the more they empty themselves and allow spiritual influx from the Lord, the more they feel free and powerful; but the more they turn to their own ideas and intentions and doing what they then feel like, the more they feel constrained and captive of their flight of ideas and emotions. While we are still in the physical body on earth we tend to feel the opposite of this heavenly model. In our external mind it appears that we feel most free when we do what we desire without any interference anywhere.

Most husbands experience a sense of constriction and loss of freedom when they acknowledge the commandment against adultery, even in the imagination. Most therapists in our generation tell their clients that it does no harm to the marriage when the husband fantasizes about sexual activities with other women so long as it remains fantasy. They even prescribe it as an activity that can re-invigorate the couple’s sexual relationship. Both self and society look with favor upon that which the Lord forbids, as people can read in the New Testament for the past two thousand years. While our moral or religious life is restricted to the external mind we feel a loss of freedom when we acknowledge God’s commandments. But when our internal mind is opened and made operational, we are turned to God and His commandments and feel freedom in obedience to His will. The internal mind of everyone is opened through the ongoing process of regeneration. This consists of a life in accordance with one’s doctrine based on God’s commandments.

The commandment for husbands to "leave mother and father" means to abandon loyalty and love for masculinized truth, and the commandment to "cleave unto the wife" means to conjoin himself in all things with the wife's affections. The essence of a woman’s life is her affections and when the husband conjoins himself to his wife’s affections he becomes a unity with her. The affections in her will and the cognitions in his understanding are organically conjoined like the heart and the lungs in the body that function together as one circulatory system. This is not just an analogy. It takes organic substances from the spiritual world to create the organs and fibers that make up the will and understanding in the mind. As the married partners are engaged in their daily interactions their new joint mind comes into being, built up fiber-by-fiber during their interactions.

In this way they gradually achieve the state of "one flesh" which means of one mind, i.e., the mind of an angel. This angelic mind is composed of the wife's affections in the will conjoined with the husband's cognitions in the understanding, thus making one angelic mind out of a man and a woman. This conjoined mind is the highest state provided by the Lord for humans and in this state we are truly human, immortal, in perfect health, ecstatically happy, fully rational, loving and compassionate, creative and skillful to the extreme in all things. This is the angelic state, and it is created when the husband loves his wife's affections more than his own and adjusts his own cognitions or ideas to harmonize with the wife's affections. In his striving to achieve unity the husband is feminizing the marriage. And the Lord rewards them by creating the perfect angelic mind out of the two imperfect individuals.

4. Becoming An Interior Man

From being an unregenerate outward man, the husband after reformation becomes an inward man. The outward man is represented by a mule of the desert (xx) and hunter of the field (xx)—thus rough, gross, and anti-feminine. But after reformation the husband becomes gentle, civilized, and wise. He is then called a man of the field (see the Introduction to Volume 1). The New Church mind must be formed as a husband who has made his internal man rule over his external. The internal man is the interior-natural infilled by the Lord with higher correspondences, giving us a new spiritual consciousness called enlightenment from the Lord (see Volume 2). The husband who is represented by a man for the field is becoming more and more a husband, and to the extent that he is becoming more and more of a husband, his wife is becoming more and more a wife:

XV. THAT IN THE MARRIAGE OF ONE MAN WITH ONE WIFE BETWEEN WHOM THERE IS LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL, THE WIFE BECOMES MORE AND MORE A WIFE, AND THE HUSBAND MORE AND MORE A HUSBAND.

That love truly conjugial conjoins two more and more into one man may be seen above (CL nos. 178, 179); and because the wife becomes a wife from conjunction with her husband and according to it, likewise the husband from conjunction with his wife; and because love truly conjugial endures to eternity, it follows that the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband.

The reason is, because in a marriage of love truly conjugial, each becomes an ever more interior man; for that love opens the interiors of their minds, and as these are opened man becomes more and more a man. To become more a man is, on the part of the wife, to become more a wife, and on the part of the husband, to become more a husband. I have heard from angels, that a wife becomes more and more a wife as her husband becomes more and more a husband, but not the reverse, for rarely if ever is it lacking that a chaste wife loves her husband. What is lacking is love in return on the part of the husband; and this is lacking on account of there being no elevation of wisdom, which alone receives a wife's love. Respecting this wisdom, see nos. 130, 163-65. This, however, is said of marriages on earth. (CL 200)

In this passage, and similar ones elsewhere, the Lord is revealing to the human race one of the most central and important scientific facts about human kind. Every man of the race is born a pre-husband or a husband-to-be. In other words, the individual male as a single man is not a true human being but only natural. True human beings are celestial, such as those who live in heaven. To become one of them we must prepare our mind by compelling the disorderly external mind to obey the order of the interior mind. This order in the interior-natural mind is a Divine order expressed in the higher spiritual correspondences active there and of which we are conscious when regenerating. This is called being enlightened by the Lord through the Letter of the Writings and its Heavenly Doctrines that we are taking up in our memory and understanding for the sake of regeneration.

To “become more and more a husband” is a correspondence for regeneration. A husband who is undergoing regeneration is the husband who is becoming more and more a husband. The expression‎ “becoming a husband” signifies to form the New Church mind within ourself by means of the Writings exclusively. In other words, becoming a genuine human being, called the celestial mind, is only possible by becoming a conjugial husband. This husband is not an individual, but the male part of a functioning angel. This is proven by the fact that when the sphere of a wife is experimentally removed from an angel husband, he instantly loses his wisdom, his sexuality, and his happiness, and becomes foolish and morose. To which he greatly wonders. Then as the sphere of the wife is reconnected, he instantly regains his angelic bliss and wisdom. (xx)

It is now revealed that conjugial love “opens the interiors of their minds, and as these are opened man becomes more and more a man.” (CL 200).

The conjugial couple is the genuine unit of the human race.

Knowing this Divine truth gives the regenerating New Church mind a tremendous advantage for all pre-married men and subsequently as husbands. Swedenborg never married according to his biographers and yet he was the first New Church mind. He was thus a pre-married man, a pre-husband. He knew and loved the idea of conjugial love about which he wrote with such understanding. He writes that he had to be led by the Lord to visit the heavens many times so that he may learn by observation the character of conjugial love, the wisdom of husbands, the perceptions of wives, and the internal unity between them.

5. Proving The Doctrine of the Wife and Rule 1

In the celestial Church good resided with the husband and the truth of that good with the wife; but in the spiritual Church truth resided with the man and the good of that truth with the wife: Such is and was the actual relationship between the two, for in human beings interior things have undergone this reversal. "wife" in the representative sense signifies truth, and a "husband" good (AC 4823).

We can apply this passage to ourselves by looking at the main expressions as correspondences to activities in our willing and thinking. Doing this will allow us to see its more interior meaning, that is, what the Lord is saying to us about our willing and thinking, and especially, how they are to be regenerated. Note the contrast between the “celestial Church” and the “spiritual Church.” Taking it as a correspondence to our regeneration, the “spiritual Church” represents our willing and thinking during regeneration on earth, and the “celestial Church” represents our willing and thinking as conjugial couple in heaven. During regeneration “truth resides with the man and the good of that truth with the wife.” But in conjugial partners “good resides with the husband and the truth of that good with the wife.”

Human action is always by the understanding from the will, and never by the will through the understanding (xx). This amazing scientific revelation will surely revolutionize many social practices and beliefs, once it is generally understood. Applying this principle to the passage above (AC 4823), we can say that during regeneration the husband (“truth with the man”) acts from the wife (“the good of that truth with the wife”). This follows logically from the principle that it is the understanding that acts from the will, since truth is in the understanding while good is in the will. To say that it is the understanding that acts from the will, is the same as saying it is the husband who acts from the wife, since truth in the understanding of the husband acts from good in the will of the wife. Truth is in the understanding while good is in the will. Truth always acts from good (xx).

But during regeneration “good resides with the husband and the truth of that good with the wife.” In other words, the wife acts (“truth of that good with the wife”) from the husband (“good resides with the husband”). Again for the same reason as before, namely that it is truth in the understanding (conjugial wife) that acts from the good in the will (conjugial husband), and never the good in the will that acts through the understanding.

What is the significance of this? What does it mean that in the first state the husband acts from the wife, while in the second state the wife acts from the husband? The second state is always higher or more interior than the first, in the same degree that celestial is higher than spiritual. While the husband is regenerating on earth he is called a spiritual Church, but after, in heaven, he is called a celestial Church. Now you can see how Rule 1 is related to the spiritual sense of this passage (AC 4823). The spiritual sense discusses the contrast between the husband on his way to conjugial love vs. the husband in conjugial love. While the husband is on his way to conjugial love he acts from his wife. Once he is in conjugial love, his wife acts from him. When he acts from the wife he is regenerating. In other words, in order to regenerate the husband must act from the wife. Rule 1 says that the husband must learn to love to act from his wife more than from himself. You can see therefore that Rule 1 is a Divine Commandment by which we can approach conjugial love.

Continuing with the same Number:

In the celestial church the husband was in good, and the wife in the truth of this good; but in the spiritual church the man is in truth, and the wife in the good of this truth; such were they in fact then, and such are they now, for the interiors of man have undergone this change. Hence where celestial good and celestial truth from it are treated of in the Word, it is said "husband and wife;" but where spiritual good and spiritual truth from it are treated of, it is said "man and wife," or rather "man and woman." (AC 4823)

The expression‎ “man and woman” signifies husband and wife in an external union, while “husband and wife” signifies husband and wife in an internal unity. Marriage in an internal unity is the true marriage, but marriage in an external union is only a representative of true marriage. On earth, the regeneration of the husband is the condition for an internal unity. This internal unity is exactly proportional to the husband’s progress in regeneration. When he falters, the internal unity dies. The husband is not much aware of the internal unity, seeing it from a distance like a four-legged animal approaching in a field with tall grasses. But to the wife the internal unity is up front, right in front of her face. It is the biggest thing in her life, all other things having a smaller importance. This is how she feels and is from creation.

Prior to regeneration, the husband acts from his own will. This unregenerate male mental state is as deadly as a poisonous snake and as slick as an eel. Deadly to himself and slick in his apparent inability to see his own spiritual insanity. Everyone prior to regeneration is spiritually insane (xx). Women marry the unregenerate man, who then becomes their unregenerate husband, rough and painful, self-involved, loving the masculine sphere above that of the feminine. The unregenerate husband is toxic to his wife, in whom conjugial love is present from nativity (xx). He hates conjugial love because the unregenerate mind hates what is heavenly, and hates conjugial love more than any other thing in the universe because it is the highest and most central of all heavenly loves and truths.

The Lord has therefore provided the New Church mind with an effective solution—Rule 1 of the Doctrine of the Wife. This Commandment, if followed, allows the husband to regenerate. If not followed, the husband cannot regenerate. It’s a clear and powerful choice—no alternatives.

To oppose Rule 1 is to keep the marriage in an external union, merely legal, social, and convenient for multiple reasons. To adopt Rule 1 as a regeneration discipline is to move the marriage into its interior unity.

How does Rule 1 work? why does it work? Consider this passage:

As speech is the form of sound, so man may be described as the form of the wife; they are one flesh; a man shall cleave to his wife; the wife is the man's soul, and life, or is the heart of the man; but neither knows anything else than that the other is his, or hers, and that each is the other's reciprocally and mutually. (SE 6110)

“Man” here signifies the husband who makes Rule 1 into a regeneration discipline. The husband who loves to act from his wife is the “man” here described. The husband is created to be the form of his wife. That he is “created” means that his regeneration creates a “man” out of him, that is, a conjugial husband. Man is created the form of his wife because man is born an understanding of truth while woman is born a will or affection of truth (xx). Every man attains the perfection of his creation when he allows himself to be regenerated by the Lord. To allow himself to be regenerated means that he compels himself to act form the wife, not from himself. He has to desist from acting from himself since this is evil, as all things of the unregenerate man are evil (xx). Hence Rule 1 is his very salvation, the bridge that leads him away from hell and to heaven.

Note this amazing scientific revelation: “a man shall cleave to his wife; the wife is the man's soul, and life, or is the heart of the man.” This refers to the regenerating husband who follows Rule 1 as a regeneration discipline. The expression‎ “to cleave to his wife” signifies the application of Rule 1 in his everyday interactions with his wife, which means, always, since the external union of marriage makes one responsible to the other 24 hours a day. The expression‎ “the wife is the man’s soul” signifies that when he loves to act from his wife, his will can be regenerated, so that form an infernal man he can become celestial. The expression‎ “the man’s soul” refers to his will because a man is nothing but his affections, and his affections are in the will. Therefore in his will is not regenerated, he remains infernal, which is referred to as the soul dying or being destroyed.

The Doctrine of the Wife is called here “the man’s soul” because this Doctrine regenerates his will. And the regenerated will is his new “life.” This new celestial life is said to be “in the heart of the man” because heart represents the love of his will. When he loves to act from the wife (Rule 1) his wife is in his heart, and she is his soul, therefore, his life. To cleave to his wife is man’s life because he then acts from her, not from himself. To act from himself is death because he then cannot be regenerated.

The husband's life enters the wife, through the thighs, and by means of love. How truth then becomes good, or understanding, the will of the wife, and how, finally, the husband's understanding becomes the form of the wife's affection. (SE 6110)

Here it is specified what Rule 1 is, namely, it is “the husband's understanding [when it] becomes the form of the wife's affection.” The “wife’s affection” signifies to act from the wife since the understanding acts from the will and affection is in the will. When the husband’s acts from the wife’s will he is said to “enter her through the thighs, and by means of love.” This is the meaning of loving the wife: To cleave to her, to act from her will, and to love this. To love to act from her affections is the true love that unites.

To become “the form” of the wife’s affection, the husband has to appropriate to himself the wife’s affection.

The wife’s affection, now in the husband’s will, motivates and directs all his thinking. His willing is according to her affection, and therefore his thinking will also be, as a consequence of the first. This is what creates the internal unity of conjugial couples.

But once they are completed as a conjugial couple, it is said that the wife acts from the husband. This is a way of saying that the husband and the wife act from each other. Nothing else would be logical. The husband’s understanding has been formed by the wife’s affection during regeneration. Now, this understanding is therefore her understanding in her husband since it was formed by her affections. Therefore she acts from this understanding. She doesn’t act from her own understanding for this would not be unity.

Any widow. That this signifies those who are in good without truth, and yet long for truth, is evident from the signification of "a widow," as being good without truth, and yet longing for it. That "a widow" has this signification is because by "a man" is signified truth, and by his "woman" is signified good; and therefore when the woman of a man becomes a widow, she signifies good without truth.

But in a still more interior sense "a widow" signifies truth without good. The reason is that in this sense "a husband" signifies good, and his "wife" truth ... (AC 9198)

You can see here that “widow” or “woman without husband” represents the two states of marriage when they both fail. The failure of the external marriage is represented by “widow” in the spiritual sense, but the failure of the internal marriage is represented by “widow” in the celestial sense. “Widow” in the spiritual sense signifies “good without truth.” This is the failure of the external marriage. But “widow” in the celestial sense signifies “truth without good.” This is the failure of the internal marriage.

Good receives power through truth (AC 3563, 4592)

A man is constructed spiritually as the inverse of a woman since woman is interior truth covered over with external love while man is interior love covered over with external truth (CL 32). Therefore, the wife’s truth is more interior than the husband’s by spiritual make-up.

The Writings also teach that in all things whatever is interior is always more heavenly than that which is exterior (xx). Clearly then, a woman's intelligence is more celestial or higher than a man's intelligence because the quality of intelligence and wisdom is determined by the truth out of which they are made. The recognition by the husband that the wife’s intelligence is higher than his own sanctifies the marriage in his mind.

Regeneration in the case of husbands consists in giving up their own proprium and living as-if from the Lord's Proprium. This means abandoning the unregenerate masculine truth (=leaving father and mother) and entering existence into the interior feminine truth (=cleaving to his wife). The feminine truth is celestial while the masculine truth is spiritual. Feminine truths are called “truths about good” or “truths about love,” while masculine truths are called “truths about truth” or “truths about wisdom” (xx). In the Lord’s Proprium there are both types of truths since in Him infinite distinct things are a one (xx).

The Lord’s Proprium is the very atmosphere of life in heaven and only those couples can live in it that have abandoned the natural order of life in the external mind and live in the spiritual order of life in the internal mind. Husbands must choose to place their own masculine affections or intentions below the feminine affections of their wife because her intelligence is higher or more interior than his intelligence and this higher or more interior intelligence can conjoin only with feminine affections, and not with masculine. Higher truths are called here feminine because they are truths about love and good, and these are celestial things. Masculine truths are called lower because they are truths about truth and wisdom, and these are spiritual things. The celestial is higher than the spiritual. Celestial truths are called feminine truths because woman is born a form of love and good, while man is born a form of truth and wisdom (xx). Celestial truths are about love and good while spiritual truths are about truth and wisdom. Therefore feminine truths are to rule over masculine truths since the higher rules over the lower. (xx) Higher means more interior, as celestial is more interior than spiritual.

By accepting the wife’s affections as-if his own, the husband experiences an inner elevation of the mind because he can now be given higher truths in his understanding. These higher truths are feminine in constitution and he can now appropriate them to himself by conjoining them to the wife’s affections in him, which he upholds as-if his own. It is this spiritual biology that necessitates the process whereby feminine affections are conjoined with masculine cognitions in the mind of the husband. The Writings call this union “the marriage of good and truth.” All good belongs to affections in the will and all truth belongs to cognitions in the understanding.

We know from the Writings that the Lord's purpose in creating and maintaining the universe is to populate the heavens with individuals born on earths. The greater the number of people in heaven, the more perfect it grows (xx). In other words, people in heaven continue to experience greater and greater perfection every day to eternity. The unit of life in heaven is the couple, not the individual, and all heaven is made of married couples. The angelic or conjugial couple is in actuality a single complete angel. Swedenborg witnessed a representation of this when he saw an angel approaching him from a distance, and when the angel was nearer he saw that it was a husband and a wife. This visual representation confirm‎s the idea of the actual internal unity of the married couple.

6. External And Internal Marriage

Changes of state are of one kind with men and of another with women, because, by creation, men are forms of science, intelligence, and wisdom, and women, forms of the love of these with men (CL 187).

Passages such as the above are seized upon by a man’s external masculinized mind, which wants to hold on to the idea that intelligence and intellectual pursuits is the arena of men while feelings and affections are the arena of women. By this affirmation men put themselves ahead of women in intelligence and wisdom while they concede that women are ahead of men in love and affection. This false and self-serving view turns their marriage into an inauthentic union made by man, not by the Lord. The union men want to make is the adjunction together of man's intelligence or wisdom with woman's “affectional predisposition,” as it has been called in New Church discussions. But this is not a true marriage because adjunction does not constitute conjunction. Before a husband is regenerated the wisdom he possesses is external, natural, and not spiritual. The passage above, and all others like it, refers to external states of marriage, which is the first phase while regeneration has not yet progressed to a significant degree. But afterwards in the second phase, internal states are described as exactly the reverse, as in this passage:

(a) The difference essentially consists in this, that the inmost quality in masculinity is love, and its veil wisdom, or in other words, it is love veiled over with wisdom, while the inmost quality in femininity is that same wisdom, the wisdom of masculinity, and its veil the love resulting from it.

(b) This second love, however, is a feminine love, and the Lord gives it to a wife through the wisdom of her husband, whereas that first love is a masculine love, which is a love of becoming wise, and the Lord gives it to a husband according to his reception of wisdom.

(c) Consequently, the male is a form of the wisdom of love, and the female is a form of the love of that wisdom.

(d) Therefore from creation there was implanted in both male and female a love of uniting into one (CL 32).

This passage has four sentences, which we marked from (a) to (d) in order to consider each in turn. Sentence (a) specifies the "essential" or inmost spiritual difference between man and woman. This spiritual organic difference is such as to allow the formation of an internal unity between a husband and a wife. No unity is possible between alike and alike for that yields only an external adjunction or co-location. Note that in order to create a structural unity there must be a particular kind of difference or relation between the two parts, so that they may function in unison like the heart and the lungs in the body act together in unison, each having its own distinct form, yet the two fitting together for joint operation as one. Sentence (a) specifies the organic structural relation in marriage by indicating that feminizing it consists in elevating masculine wisdom from external truth and reasoning, to internal, or which is the same, from the external mind to the internal mind.

A wife imbibes and appropriates her husband's intelligence and wisdom and then elevates it within herself, that is, makes it more interior, and then covers it over with feminine love. This is stated in sentence (b). Note this very important observation: In sentence (b) it is said that the Lord gives the wife conjugial love "through the wisdom of her husband." There are two ways of interpreting the meaning. One is that the wisdom mentioned here is the wisdom of the husband such as it is in the husband. But this is not in accord with the Doctrine of the Wife and its rationale. The other possible meaning is that the wisdom of the husband mentioned here refers to the wisdom of the husband that is now in the wife, and this wisdom is higher than the husband’s even though it originated from the husband. This means that the wife has conjugial love from the Lord when she unites the current wisdom in her (originally from the husband) with harmonious affections also in her, within which is the love from the Lord.

In this second interpretation it is clear that the wife's intelligence and wisdom is more interior than his, even though her wisdom originates with him. But it is given to the wife to take that wisdom of the husband within her and to elevate it by implanting it in her inner rational mind where it now functions at a more interior level than that of the husband from which it originated. The Writings say that this interior truth is represented in the Old Testament by Sarah, Abraham's wife, and by Rebecca, Isaac’s wife. It is celestial truth and is such as the highest angels have. Angelic unity of the married couple depends on the husband imbibing the wife's affections and the wife imbibing the husband's cognitions. This reciprocal and organic process gradually changes and perfects the cognitions and affections of both husband and wife in an endless process of deeper and richer union. This is not a static or one time process. When the husband imbibes the wife's affections, his cognitions must change accordingly in order to maintain the equilibrium of unity. He gains a deeper wisdom than before. When a wife imbibes her husband's cognitions, her new affections are more sublime than before. Swedenborg was very affected by this interiorized beauty whenever he was in the presence of angelic wives who were advanced in wisdom. The more husbands and wives love each other's reciprocity, the more they are conjoined in deeper unity. And this to eternity. What an amazing and wonderful reality! This is indicated in sentence (d).

Sentence (b) also states that the Lord gives the husband wisdom according to his "reception" of wisdom. What is the measure of his reception? Not his knowledge and intelligence, but the life he conducts according to these. This means the kind of affections he favors because people are led by their affections. The Lord is instructing husbands that if they favor the affections of the wife, then they are receptive of His Wisdom. Then He can give them that Wisdom to be as-if their own, and more of it to eternity. A husband can become wise only to the extent he is living what we knows to be true from his religion, and in the case of the Writings, this means loving the affections of his wife above his own. These are the affections wives have from the Lord and by elevating them above their own affections, husbands are living the doctrine they know and understand from the Writings. They are then receptive to the Lord's Wisdom.

As they receive deeper wisdom from the Lord, their wife imbibes it, elevates it in her interior mind, and receives new, deeper and more genuine conjugial love from the Lord. The husband now can imbibe her new affections--and the cycle of unity continues to grow and perfect itself forever. To imbibe the wife's affections and to favor them means that the husband must never disagree and always agree with his wife's affectional requests in all things.

7. Heresies Regarding The Husband's Wisdom

The Writings of Swedenborg contain the greatest scientific revelations ever made to humankind. The center of these revelations is that human emotions and feelings are arranged in a hierarchy from strongest to weakest, and the strongest at the very top is the intense desire to unite in marriage. This state of inner unition between a husband and a wife is the complete and pure human state of life. It is the angelic life of couplehood. This is the life Swedenborg witnessed with numerous couples with whom he interacted in the spiritual world and the heavens. The married couple is organically united in spirit or mind in a fashion similar to newly born Siamese twins who are physically joined in the body. Without knowing this internal spiritual reality, an inner union between husband and wife cannot be achieved. In fact, due to inherited evils, there is strong opposition to the conjugial union, especially by men.

In Conjugial Love Number 168-177 it is shown that a conjugial union is necessary for an individual to become whole and complete as a human being. A man and a woman are singly incomplete, the man lacking the love or affections his understanding needs to be whole, and the wife lacking the understanding or intelligence her love and affections need to be complete. It is stated that men are born to be “intellectual” while women are born to be “affectional.” The Writings also state that men are called wisdoms while wives are called affections. A woman is said to be the love of her husband’s wisdom. A man’s mind is born a form of understanding while a woman’s mind is born a form of love.

There is a temptation for men when they come across statements such as these in the Writings. From a natural perspective men prefer to think that they are superior to women in understanding the dynamics of life and the world, and therefore they feel that they should have the ultimate power to decide things relating to Church, government, business, and domestic affairs. In other words, it’s a man’s world and women have their appropriate place in it. The letter of Sacred Scripture in the major religions is written according to natural and cultural appearances so that men of every religion have found Divine justification for putting men ahead of women in many walks of life, if not all. This masculinized notion is a doctrinal fallacy. Husbands must let go of this persuasion or fail in their attempt to regenerate and become an angel with a wife in heaven.

In order to free oneself from this masculinized persuasion it is necessary to balance statements of Scripture with passages that say just the opposite. For example, in the symbology of the Writings, Abraham represents Divine Love while his wife Sarah represents Divine Truth. This correspondence is repeated in other Biblical couples such as Rebecca and Isaac. In the story of Hagar and Ishmael in the Old Testament we are told that Sarah asked Abraham to banish Hagar and her child Ishmael from the household, an idea to which Abraham balked. So God appeared to him and commanded, “all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice” (Genesis 21:12).

"Husband," when mentioned in the Word, signifies good, and "wife" then signifies truth. It is otherwise when the husband is called the "man;" for then "man" signifies truth, and "wife" good  (AC 2517)

In the spiritual church the wife represents good and the man represents truth, but in the celestial church the husband represents good and the wife truth; and-what is a mystery-they not only represent, but also in all their activities correspond to them. (AC 4434)

This is another example showing that the intelligence of a wife is higher or more discerning than her husband’s, and that a husband should be obedient to his wife for the sake of conjugial love. Abraham’s idea in his own external mind is to think that Ishmael is his son, and so he is disinclined to listen to his wife when she tells him to get rid of him. Sarah’s more interior perception can see that Ishmael is not the one, that Isaac will be the inheritor, and that leaving Ishmael to hang around will threaten Isaac’s God given mission. If Abraham is going to advance to his inner rational state he must disregard his own inclination and external reasoning, and submit to his wife’s more interior perception and spiritual understanding which she has from the Lord. This exchange in the Old Testament represents the Doctrine of the Wife, which is summarized by the Divine commandment to husbands: “Hearken unto her voice.”

And behold Isaac was laughing with Rebekah his woman. That this signifies that Divine good was present in Divine truth, or that Divine good was adjoined to Divine truth, is evident from the representation of Isaac, as being the Divine good of the Lord's rational (n. 3012, 3194, 3210); from the signification of "laughing," as being the love or affection of truth (n. 2072, 2216); and from the representation of Rebekah, as being the Divine truth of the Lord's rational (n. 3012, 3013, 3077). Hence it is evident that "Isaac laughing with Rebekah his woman" signifies that Divine good was present with Divine truth. (AC 3392) (italics added for emphasis)

The reason for the apparent contradictions as to the intelligence and wisdom of men and women has to do with the fact that the internal and external mind is in an inverse relationship. Intelligence of the external kind is a lower form of intelligence, less spiritual and celestial, in comparison to the intelligence of the interior mind. Conjugial union is the joining of the internal mind in which the intelligence of women is more internal than the intelligence of men. This allows men to escape their inherited lower state of masculine independence and evolve into a new higher state of conjoint dependence. This is the angelic state of life.

A sermon by Rev. Geoffrey H. Howard titled "The Transformation of a Man into a Husband and a Woman into a Wife through Marriage" appeared in New Church Life, June 2001 issue, pages 243-248. We will use this article to illustrate some doctrinal issues in relation to the Doctrine of the Wife. The literal of the Writings can lead to misconceptions unless contextualized in relation to the Doctrine of the Wife or other passages in the Writings. In other words, articulating the Doctrine of the Wife and applying it to interpret the literal of the Writings avoids the heresy of believing that men’s intelligence in forensics and in spiritual instruction is superior to women due to men's wisdom, which women cannot attain. It is difficult to avoid this heresy without the Doctrine of the Wife.

It is customary to make a statement of denial in relation to the heresy of the superiority of men over women. Rev. Howard states it this way:

It is important to take teachings such as these in their proper context. Some have read into such teachings in Conjugial Love the erroneous notion that masculine virtues are extolled over those of the feminine. Nothing could be further from the truth

(NCL, June 2001, p.244).

Every New Church person needs to struggle with an apparent paradox in the Writings. Certain passages appear to suggest that men are superior to women with respect to wisdom. Rev. Howard refers to one of these from Conjugial Love:

“We say that masculinity cannot be converted into femininity, nor femininity into masculinity, and that after death a male is consequently still a male, and a female still a female. (…) The difference essentially consists in this, that the inmost quality in masculinity is love, and its veil wisdom, or in other words, it is love veiled over with wisdom, while the inmost quality in femininity is that same wisdom, the wisdom of masculinity, and its veil the love resulting from it. This second love, however, is a feminine love, and it is given by the Lord to a wife through the wisdom of her husband, whereas that first love is a masculine love, which is a love of becoming wise, and it is given by the Lord to a husband according to his reception of wisdom.” (CL 32)

Rev. Howard concludes:

From this we can see that the reception of masculine wisdom depends upon a man's willingness to look to the Lord and shun as sins against the Lord the evils that may tempt him. Thus we can see that a man does not automatically receive wisdom because he is a male. He receives it only by honoring the Lord through living according to His commandments.

Following The Lord's Commandments Through One’s Wife

How does a man live according to the Lord's commandments? One might think at first that the husband has that power from the Lord independently of his wife. Can a husband live according to the Lord's commandments from his efforts apart from the wife or can he do this only through his wife? Could it be that the husband cannot follow the Lord's commandments unless he does so through his wife? How else can the mind of each grow into reciprocal form that can fit into a unity of mind or spirit? This conjoint growth process was described above as a four-step interaction repeatedly made with each other on a daily living basis. What would happen if the heart said to the lungs, “I’m superior,” while the lungs, speaking in unison, retort, “We are superior.” One angel in heaven is made of a husband and wife interacting continuously as a conjoint unity. Swedenborg was witnessed this phenomenon while speaking to an angel husband in heaven who had invited him in to discuss the subject of wisdom:

I saw inside that the building was divided into two sections, and yet the two were still one.  It was divided into two sections by a transparent partition, but it looked like one room because of the partition's transparency, which was like the transparency of the purest crystal. I asked why it was arranged like that.

The receptionist said, "I am not alone. My wife is with me, and though we are two, yet we are not two but one flesh."

To which I replied, "I know you are wise, but what does a wise man or wisdom have to do with a woman?"

At this, with some feeling of annoyance, the receptionist's expression‎ changed, and he stretched out his hand, and suddenly, then, other wise men were present from the neighboring buildings. To them he said with amusement, "Our visitor here says he wants to know what a wise man or wisdom has to do with a woman!"

They all laughed at this and said, "What is a wise man or wisdom apart from a woman or apart from love? A wife is the love of a wise man's wisdom." (CL 56)

Rev. Howard recognizes that women’s wisdom is more interior, therefore, higher, than a man’s:

Feminine wisdom, or perception, does not easily lend itself to description because it is of a more interior nature than is the wisdom given to a man (...) They are entirely different in quality and nature, yet complementary to each other.

(NCL, June 2001, p.245)

From the perspective of the Doctrine of the Wife it is not enough to say

(a) that masculine and feminine wisdom are different; and

(b) that they are complementary.

A conclusion must follow:

(c) Therefore the husband should elevate the wife's judgment above his own.

Another way of saying this is Rule 1 for conjugial husbands, as discussed frequently throughout this volume:

RULE 1:

The first and only rule is that husbands are to learn to love acting from the wife, more than from self.

(See Chapter 9, Sections 3 and 4 for more discussion on Rule 1)

Without this conclusion, the literal of the Writings may be misinterpreted. The husband's wisdom may indeed be elevated even to the highest heaven, but he cannot appropriate it to himself. His wisdom falls back quickly to the level of his love or affections, which are in hell for all who are unregenerate. The Writings make this comparison referring to the natural man before he is regenerated:

He is also like an adulterer who hides a harlot in a room below, and in turn ascends to the highest story of his house, and there in the presence of his wife talks wisely with visitors about chastity, and again steals away from the company and satiates his lust with the harlot below (TCR 590).

This comparison is said about every husband whose internal spiritual mind has not yet been opened through regeneration. Husbands can elevate their intellect into doctrinal things of the Writings while they are studying and applying themselves piously. Then they descend from the lofty heights of studies and interact with their wife, abusing them mentally, discounting their intellect, holding the wife's judgment as nothing in comparison to their own, and other such indignities, which they think nothing of. And this is done repeatedly, daily. There is no regeneration possible for them so long as this pattern in their life continues to rule their interactions with the wife.

Rev. Howard cautions that the wife’s love of her husband’s wisdom does not mean that she also loves his evils:

No wife can love a proud or conceited husband. (...) The attraction he feels [as he is drawn to her by love] has the effect of subduing his proprial pride. (...) Through the influence of her love his mind becomes elevated and aspires to a new idealism that no longer looks inward. He feels an incentive to live in a manner worthy of her love and respect. Through her influence he is withdrawn from his fallen proprium. By living a principled life of service to his wife, family and others, he begins to receive a degree of wisdom which will draw the affections of his wife

(NCL, June 2001, p.247).

The husband must make progress in his regeneration or character reformation, for without this there is no wisdom in him that the wife can love. According to the Doctrine of the Wife the only way a husband can improve his wisdom is by elevating his wife's judgment above his own. This is “living a principled life of service to his wife.” Unless this is the case the husband is drawn away by his proprium or inborn egotism and cleaves to his idols rather than his wife. It’s not enough to respect the wife and consult her in matters of importance, though these external rituals are required. If there is no commitment to the Doctrine of the Wife the husband can be drawn away by his masculine proprium and decide to exercise a veto power over the “joint” decision making process.

Consulting the wife in matters of importance still allows the husband to override her point of view or desire in the matter. And he will exercise this power when he is tempted, which means he cannot loose himself, cannot change his character, cannot regenerate, cannot form a union with the wife, cannot become an angel.

But if he commits to the Doctrine of the Wife he cannot permit himself to exercise veto power or override his wife’s affections in any matter whenever he is inclined to do so for whatever reason or rationale. He can only compel himself to be obedient to the Heavenly Doctrine for this is the Lord’s Two Great Commandments rolled into one. By loving the wife above himself, the husband loves his closest neighbor, and he thereby simultaneously loves the Lord because this love for his wife and her love for him is conjugial love, the love in which angels are in heaven. The Writings teach that it is the Lord’s most passionate desire that He be able to create as many angel couples as we let Him, for this is the purpose for which He created the universe and maintains it in order to perpetuity.

It is believed that if the husband applies himself to following the commandments, his wisdom will grow from the Lord, and the wife will be able to love his wisdom even more, and thus the couple is conjoined. But this contains a dubious assumption, namely, that the husband gains wisdom from the Lord apart from his wife, through his own independent effort and striving to follow the Lord's commandments, and then the wife can love this new wisdom in him. But the Writings specify that a husband receives new wisdom from the Lord only in proportion to his love. Striving to improve in itself is not sufficient for the husband to receive more interior truths from the Lord. This is because the striving is from his proprium. His only salvation is to love the wife's judgment and perception above his own, to love the wife's wisdom above his own. Then his love will be elevated because her wisdom is more interior than his. This higher love can now receive more interior wisdom from the Lord. This is the genuine new wisdom, which the wife takes into her inmost and from which she brings out a feminine veil of love that covers her.

There are, in consequence, two loves in a man, one of which is the love of growing wise, which comes first, and the second of which is the love of wisdom, which comes afterwards. But if this second love continues on in a man, it is an evil love, and is called conceit or love of his own intelligence. It will be established later that to keep this love from destroying man, it was provided from creation that this love be taken from him and transferred into woman, so that it might become conjugial love, which makes him whole again. (CL 88).

8. Feminine Love Within Which Is Masculine Wisdom

It is this feminine love within which is masculine wisdom that makes the atmosphere of heaven in which the angels live in blissful splendor to eternity. Couples here on earth in which the husband is committed to the Doctrine of the Wife and lives it, are internally in this heavenly atmosphere. Their conjoint spirit is actually in heaven.

I have often asked myself this question: What does it mean when the wives of New Church men feel themselves inadequate with respect to Doctrine, do not write articles about it, do not participate actively in doctrinal debates, receive the doctrinal lessons from men, and have the attitude that creating and interpreting Doctrine is for the men. What does such a state of affairs in a religious community tell us about gender relations and conjugial love in that community?

There are two types of explanations. One type takes the position that Doctrine is for men, primarily, especially formulating Doctrine and interpreting the Writings as Doctrine. The other type takes up the position that Doctrine is separate from priesthood. For instance, an evil or insincere priest can perform sacraments but can’t create genuine doctrine (AC 9180). An evil man can create only false doctrine because he creates it from his self-intelligence. He is no motivated to understand the Writings for the sake of truth, but for the sake of dominion. Therefore the Lord can reveal not a single genuine Doctrine to his mind. He will teach only false and adulterated doctrine.

This proves that being a priest and performing the sacraments for the community does not necessarily go with being good and, therefore, having truth in the doctrine they formulate.

It stands to reason therefore that a priest has no special authority to create Doctrine for the Church. The Writings say that priests ought to teach the Word in sermons and classes (NJHD 315). It doesn’t say that that what they therefore teach will be genuine Doctrine. This depends entirely on his state of regeneration (LIFE 39). A priest has no special inspiration to formulate genuine Doctrine when he is in evil, for falsity goes with evil, not truth. Since we never know whether an individual is internally in good or evil (CL 523), we cannot automatically assume that any priest’s teachings of doctrine are genuine or false—it could be either. If we merely accepted what a priest teaches out of authority for his position, we are precipitated into persuasive faith, and this is deadly for it leads to no belief at all when we arrive in the afterlife with that kind of faith (NJHD 117)

So priests ought to encourage people to study the Writings and accumulate their Doctrine from it. This is the only protection the sheep have from the wolves—their own reformation, that is, their acquisition of knowledge from the Writings and the use of this Doctrine in their daily willing and thinking. This is the only way to develop genuine Doctrine for each New Church mind. The motivation to “save souls” that attracts many priests to religious service is not to be interpreted as the ability to save souls, for only the Lord has this ability. Neither does the Lord give this ability by proxy to the priest (AE 206). The priest does not have the ability to save anyone. Therefore the motivation to save souls is in reality the motivation to help others in accepting the process of reformation, then helping them in undergoing the process of regeneration. This is when priests are motivated to save souls (xx). And since reformation and regeneration depends on forming genuine spiritual Doctrine in our mind, this is what the priest is to teach. Not: saving souls by teaching them Doctrine, but: teaching them the means by which they are to form Doctrine for themselves.

He who loves the ends also loves the means (AE 1144). Since the end in view is reformation and regeneration through forming Doctrine and living it, therefore teaching how to form Doctrine is the priest’s primary work of saving souls. Primary, because no one is saved by sacraments, but only by regeneration (LJP 216). And no one is regenerated without willing and thinking Doctrine from one’s as-of self comprehension (AC 47, 233, 1712, 2877, 5664, 10299; NJHD 148; DP 102; CL 82; SE 5958; LJ 299; AE 864). Clearly therefore, the New Church mind cannot be formed unless we form Doctrine for ourselves (AC 6822). And this Divine commandment applies equally to men and women.

I come back to the question I posed above: Why are we not seeing more doctrinal activity and involvement by women in the New Church? The fact that there is some such activity proves that women can be involved in doctrinal formations and are capable of doing it by studying the Writings on their own, just like any male man. Doctrinals articles appear from time to time in the General Church publications (e.g., New Church Life, Alpha Theta, and elsewhere). Men must become aware of the way they discourage women to be active in formulating the Doctrine of the Church. We must distinguish two separate issues and not mix them up: one is the issue of “women priests” and the other is the issue raised here: women’s contributions to Doctrine equally with men of the Church, whether priests or lay. These two issues must be separated because they are different and different considerations are involved. To mix them up is to play politics with the Word.

The priesthood may discourage or prevent women from becoming priests in the full sense. This is one issue. But the priesthood may not discourage women from actively being interested in doctrine and contributing to it. Regardless of the Church’s official position on the issue of “women priests,” the priesthood must always teach men and women how to formulate Doctrine for themselves out of the Writings. They must teach that there is no power of salvation in the sacraments they provide or in the doctrinal things they teach. They must teach that the only method of salvation is reformation and regeneration, and that this can be performed only by means of Doctrine each individual forms from the Writings in their own individual mind.

The attitude that Doctrine is primarily for men is present in all religions. Where I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family it was required that all boys start attending “cheder” (religious classes) at age four or five. But the girls were kept with the mothers learning domestic duties. This is clearly detrimental in the light of the preceding discussion. Other religions, both Western and Eastern, similarly keep women from active involvement with formulating Doctrine for the Church. There is thus a long standing generational bias to deny women what they need for their own salvation. What can motivate this except the hatred for conjugial love? This is a hatred all men have from inheritance and confirmation in life (see the following Sections below).

Of course we know from the Writings that the Lord protects all innocent people from being denied spiritual freedom. The women who are deprived by the dragons (AR 565) of their doctrinal rights and privileges are protected inwardly by the Lord so that their spiritual choices in life are protected. Outwardly, that is, socially and politically, women can be denied knowledge and legitimacy of forming Doctrine, and this results in great harm to the community. But inwardly, every woman is given by the Lord other secret means of reformation and regeneration. Women receive special perception from the Lord so that they have Doctrine written in their hearts, like we all do when we become angels in heaven (HH 25). This inward perception gives them wisdom, or the ability to perceive that a spiritual proposition is true or false. Men do not have this perception from the Lord so they must study as-of self and struggle with learning the Writings and applying it to their willing and thinking. In this less direct and more elaborated way, men too can form Doctrine.

The New Church mind is unlike any other mind in the history of the human race. It is the highest possible form of being a genuine human, as intended by the Lord in His New Creation. The proof is this: that the New Heavens based on the Writings are at the center of the heavenly geography or spiritual position in relation to the Lord (LJ 48). They are the closest to the Lord, hence are able to receive a higher life than any other angelic society. All other angelic heavens, regardless of religion, are further from the center and at a greater distance (SS 105; CLJ 68). They retain less of what they receive from the Lord because they have a more distance perception and understanding of Him. The love and closeness to the Lord is proportional to the type of truths we have about Him. Those who have more interior truths from Him receive in these truths a higher form of life. But those who have acquired less interior truths can receive a lower level of life that can live within these less interior truths. These differences are not to be considered with invidious comparisons since everyone who is in a heaven is in their fullness of being. No one in heaven can support greater bliss than they already have (xx). The differences are to be seen in terms of the endless variety of the human genius that is continuously being gathered from the endless earths in the universe. Variety is an image of the Lord’s Infinite Love and Wisdom, and also, it contributes to the perfection of the evolving humanity (for more discussion see Chapter 2 Section 7 and Chapter 3 Section 2).

And we are to remember this: that the level of life of the highest angels of the entire human race, now and into the future, is as nothing in comparison to the Lord’s Life, His Love and Wisdom (HH 273).

9. The Role Of The Wife In The Husband's Wisdom

One of the many biological facts revealed in the Writings is that the spiritual constitution of men and women is inside out and outside in relative to each other. This organic difference results in reciprocal roles for unition. Unition would not be possible unless the spiritual organic parts of men and women were reciprocal. Wherever the word "spiritual" is used, you can also think "mental" because the mind is the spirit-body that continues its immortal life in the spiritual world. At birth, the mind or spirit is born along with the physical body and is formed through social and natural experiences on earth.

Man was created by God so as to have his internal in the spiritual world and his external in the natural world. Thus he was created a denizen of either world in order that the spiritual, which is heavenly, should be planted in the natural, which is worldly, just as a seed is planted in the ground, and he might thus become steadfast and enduring to eternity. (TCR 14)

We are thus dual citizens, the physical body on earth and the mind or spirit in the spiritual world.

Man was created by God so as to have his internal in the spiritual world and his external in the natural world. Thus he was created a denizen of either world in order that the spiritual, which is heavenly, should be planted in the natural, which is worldly, just as a seed is planted in the ground, and he might thus become steadfast and enduring to eternity. (TCR 14)

When the spirit is disconnected from the physical body at the time of passing on, the spirit is then visible in its full form and beauty. Swedenborg has encountered thousands of individuals in heaven and they all are in the “flower of youth and beauty” or around seventeen or eighteen. The spirit-body is organically and functionally far superior to the physical body, even the body of a top fashion model or athlete that our society admires. Men and women appear in their ideal form in heaven, but in hell they appear deformed.

In order to be soul mates in heaven a wife and a husband must develop a character and personality other than what each was born with on earth. One of the startling revelations in the Writings is that the character of every child contains the cumulative evils of all its ancestors. It is also taught that no one goes to hell for the evils of another. We inherit the tendency and preference towards innumerable evils attached to egotism and irrationality (CL 202). But simultaneously we also inherit the power to oppose our evil tendencies and to reject the false philosophies within which these evils are immersed. The Lord in regeneration gives us this power. First, the Lord makes spiritual truths available to us in our external mind through education and instruction. Second, he gives us the power to live up to these truths, as we are tempted over and over again in daily living. As we struggle with our temptations and win victories over them, the Lord is able to open up our internal spiritual mind, which is in heaven. This internal mind then descends into the external mind where we become conscious of it. This is our tangible reward.

The process by which husbands are regenerated is not the same as what happens with single men. The wife plays a required role. This makes sense since the couple’s life in heaven is only through a conjoint mind. This must be developed on earth because regeneration is possible only while we are in the physical body. Once the spirit-body is liberated, its life then continues such as it developed while tied to the physical body. There is no “changing your mind” after you pass on. A regenerating couple on earth must therefore evolve and develop a conjoint mind through daily interactions. This is why it is required that the wife be involved in the husband’s regeneration. The wife’s role in the husband’s regeneration is determined by the biological necessity of their respective spiritual form. The Doctrine of the Wife specifies the kind of interactions that correspond to this form.

It has now been revealed that husbands are born conjugial unwillingnesses and feel the urge to rebel, to resist, to protest, to complain, and to withdraw. But the wife, strengthened by the knowledge of spiritual truth and reality, will remind him thus:

My husband, you know you cannot save yourself by yourself. You know the Lord has appointed me to lead you to heaven. To assist me in this task, the Lord gives me perception to see your inmost inclinations or affections, and the Lord gives me wisdom to defeat the pack of delusions and lies that you've surrounded yourself with and to which you continue to hold on. You have no choice. I'm waiting. The Lord and heaven are waiting. Get with it. Give up your pride and arrogance and listen to me. Do as I ask.  Etc.

This is the Doctrine of the Wife--talking sense into men that they may enjoy eternal conjugial bliss. It contains the idea that marriage is social, legal, and religious on the outside but spiritual on the inside. The external aspects of marriage may be called by the usual word "conjugal" but the internal spiritual aspects are called "conjugial." The extra “i” represents the elevation of the natural marriage into spiritual marriage. The Lord intends that we first form, build, develop the outside conjugal aspects of marriage and then, when this is solidly established, that we form, build, and develop the inside conjugial aspects.

Unity is to be achieved in both outside and inside aspects. Then the marriage is truly conjugial, blessed, and eternal. But the fact is that external unity can be achieved and then never go on to internal unity. Spiritually this is a disaster. Husband and wife are then on their own in regeneration, like single men and women. This is important to remember when a woman feels discouragement because her husband resists the work it takes to achieve inner unity. All is not lost for her, and though it's not possible to know this fully in advance, she can trust that the Lord will provide her with her true soul mate in the afterlife. A wife ceaselessly and courageously continues her efforts to unite herself to her husband, externally and internally, despite all his efforts to discourage and resist her. By doing this she makes it possible for the Lord to unconsciously prepare her conjugial mind from within in such a way that she in the afterlife can conjoin with a suitable man also prepared for her by the Lord.

10. Inventory Of Confessions For Husbands

To shun evils is to do goods (AE 803)

The Writings teach that “All of us are born with a tendency to every kind of evil, and if we do not partially remove evils by repentance, we remain subject to them, and if so cannot be saved.” (TCR 520) The Writings also teach "A mere verbal confession that one is a sinner is not repentance." (TCR 516). In order to repent and reform we must become conscious of each evil trait in our character in a specific way. This is the purpose of the inventory of evils inspired by the Doctrine of the Wife. The inventory is something we need to keep track of for ourselves. A public confession to anyone but one’s wife is not a requirement for repentance and regeneration. But because we don’t want to publicly discuss our evils of daily life is not a reason for not becoming aware of them ourselves in an objective way by self-witnessing and monitoring our moment by moment willing and thinking all day long. This kind of self-awareness takes practice to perform effectively just like any other discipline or task that you learn to do well. First, can you see yourself making this kind of confession to the Lord, to yourself, and to your spouse?

I husband, will circle the items that constitute my confession, which is that I have been engaging in these lowly acts on a regular basis and that now I wish to stop, by first, recognizing my brutishness, and second, holding it in aversion for the sake of the Lord and a heavenly life with my wife. One way I can show my honest intention is to print out the list with the circled items and to ask my wife to help me fill in what I have left out.

I also realize that it's not up to me to tell her to fill out a similar list for herself because our situations are not parallel, and for me to ask her to do that would be insulting her and thus contrary to the intent of this confession.

I also dedicate myself to maintaining these lists up to date so that I will write all those additional items that do not yet appear, but of which I'm guilty and become aware of.

In all this I realize that though I must do this as-of self, the power for my success is solely the Lord’s. I acknowledge that the removal of these evils is not something I do on my own and alone. Angles and spirits are present and intimately involved in every detail. The Lord manages and supervises this process in its every detail.

Now take a look at the list. It can be considered a behavioral Inventory of Confessions for husbands. You might like to adjust the style and particular content to fit your actuality. These items are for the most part the things I have noticed in myself, after much help and insistence from my wife. A few were added from other husbands who wrote to me. I numbered them for easy reference but I have not tried to order them or group them—though that might be a beneficial task as it increases consciousness of the inner affections that maintain these outward behaviors of conjugial evil, both inherited and acquired.

1.        I upset her by raising a topic at the wrong time

2.        In our conversations, I initiate most of the topics

3.        When we talk, I pursue my perspective on the topic rather than hers

4.        When I get upset in our exchanges, I raise my voice and put on a stern face

5.        When I'm under stress, I don't mind taking it out on her

6.        When I'm very angry, my body assumes a threatening posture towards her

7.        When I feel that she is driving me nuts, I stay away from her

8.        When I think she is not paying attention, I punish her by making her feel bad

9.        When I feel nagged, I think it's OK not to answer her

10.      If in a discussion, I feel that she is getting irrational, I put her down in my mind

11.      If I get annoyed at her, I don't mind showing it

12.      I refuse to take responsibility for her bad feelings

13.      I criticize her when I feel she deserves it

14.      I hate it when she pouts because of something insignificant I did to her

15.      I hate it the way she keeps bugging me when I won't do something her way

16.      Sometimes I think she is a bit lazy

17.      I think she tends to deliberately exaggerate our difficulties

18.      I often think it's unfair the way she mostly wants things her way

19.      When things get impossible with her, I just walk off

20.      When she leaves or comes home, she wants me to make a big fuss over her, and I hate it

21.      When she has PMS, I try to stay out of her way

22.      I don't mind embarrassing her in public if she gets on my nerves

23.      When I drive, I don't tolerate her telling me what to do

24.      I put my loyalty for our children ahead of my loyalty for her

25.      I show my impatience when I am shopping with her and thinking she is taking too long

26.      When I get mad at her, I stay mad longer than a few minutes

27.      When I make her cry, I wait more than five minutes to come to her rescue

28.      I let weeks go by without making her dance with me even though I know she wants to

29.      I let days go by without giving her a shoulder and neck rub even though she would want one

30.      I let a whole day go by without giving her at least one kiss or hug

31.      I often change topics without satisfying her

32.      I frequently conveniently forget something I agreed to do

33.      I neglect her and exploit her in many different ways

34.      I betray her in my mind by ridiculing her, belittling her, saying No to her

35.      I try to keep certain information about myself from her so she won't be able to get to me by using it to pressure or fight me

36.      I retaliate when she's just doing her conjugial job pointing to my resistances and lack of cooperation in conjugial unity

37.      I flatulate at my pleasure without consideration for her feelings or sensibilities

38.      I belch aloud in her presence without excusing myself, acting like a savage

39.      I expose her to my bad breath

40.      I expose her to my body’s unpleasant acrid odors from sweating and not washing

41.      I often present my scratchy unshaven face and irritate her skin and her sense of grace

42.      I touch her with dirty finger nails

43.      I let my nose and ear hair grow until they show despite her protest

44.      I walk around the house in dirty shorts and sneakers, not caring about what it looks to her

45.      I leave my clothes lying around for her to pick up

46.      I never pick up after her, expecting her to do that

47.      I don't launder my dirty clothes and often don't bother thanking her for doing it for me

48.      I am mostly oblivious to washing dirty dishes, leaving the kitchen chores to her

49.      I expect her to take care of the bills and then criticize her if she makes a mistake or is late

50.      I don't call her when I'm late coming home, ignoring her fears and insecurity

51.      I neglect to express my appreciation for a thousand little kindnesses she does for me all day long

52.      I don't mind staring at other women when she is with me, and I don't hide it from her (or else: and I hide from her).

53.      I stare at other women when she is not with me, without trying to remind myself that my wife wouldn’t like that

54.      I'm not upset if I forget to do something I promised her, and I don't try to own up to my mistake and make her feel better about it

55.      I fail to give her dependable and regular sexual satisfaction due to my incompetence

56.      I fail to massage her body every day, though she likes it, needs it, and feels it as closeness

57.      I sometimes criticize her body parts

58.      I fail to play with her hair, though she told me many times she likes that and makes her feel secure

59.      I often fail to comment appropriately on her appearance, clothes, jewelry

60.      I sometimes criticize her looks

61.      I make her wait when she calls me to the meal table

62.      I make her late when she's anxious to get there on time

63.      I often enter a room where she is and do not first acknowledge her presence

64.      I often show insufficient enthusiasm for her proposals, hints, plans

65.      I lie to her when I decide it's OK to do that

66.      I let her believe a lie sometimes to avoid an argument

67.      I don't laugh at her jokes or sense of humor

68.      I have not bothered to learn how to walk with her without bumping into her

69.      I have not bothered to learn how to drive without making her anxious about my driving

70.      I have not bothered to learn how to find something at home without asking her (e.g., a light bulb, a battery, a clean bed sheet, a tax record, etc.)

71.      I have not bothered to learn how to buy her tampons without having to ask her the size

72.      I have not bothered to remember what her doctor's name is and what medicines she takes

73.      I don't feel responsible for running out of things at house parties--that's her problem

74.      I don't feel responsible for getting us to a social engagement on time

75.      I don't feel responsible for keeping up appropriate social appearances and do all the expected rituals fro family and friends, like birthdays etc.--that's her job

76.      I don't feel responsible for planning and preparing for a party we throw--that's her job

77.      I don't feel responsible for taking care of Christmas gifts--that's her job

78.      I don't feel responsible for taking the cats to the vets for their shots, but I complain when she doesn't

79.      I make her responsible for overdrawing our checking account

80.      I don't feel responsible for taking our clothes to the cleaners

81.      I sometimes forget our anniversary date

82.      I often discount what she says and perceives, even though I know from the Doctrine of the Wife that she speaks and perceives from the Lord

83.      I raise my voice above hers to force her to relinquish her demand

84.      I am task-involved in discussing something with her, and pay little attention to how she feels during the discussion, simply ignoring her frustration and suffering

85.      I often ignore where a discussion was left off, so she gets the feeling it's hopeless because there is no cumulative progress--so she has to start from scratch each time

86.      I often forget things that are important to her that she doesn't want me to forget. Further, I don't act like my forgetting is a big deal and I act like she is a stickler or nag because she insists on remembering that stuff

87.      I don't try to find out what she thinks about many things because I don't make the effort to find out, so that she is left with the injurious feeling that I don't care about her and that I'm not interested in her

88.      I raise my voice at her and intimidate her physically (like throwing something, banging on something, or grabbing her with force, etc.) so that she feels fear from me as if I were her father or a stranger

89.      I criticize her, which makes her feel that I do not like her

90.      I don't always help her when she needs help, thus letting her figure it out for herself--which gives her the feeling of not having a friend

91.      I have sex with her without making up for my prior insults or quarrels--this makes her feel like a slut, but I act like it's not a big deal

92.      I use my male prerogatives to satisfy myself in sex without wanting to know or making the effort to find out, whether she has been satisfied

93.      I rebel against her desire to know my every move, and don't tell her details about my schedule, so she has to wonder where I am and when I'm coming home. And worse: sometimes lying about what I do or covering it up because I want to retain my independence, or because I decided it's not her role to keep tabs on my comings and goings.

94.      I resent her for wanting to micro-manage my time or activities and, going along with that resentment instead of fighting it as illegitimate and evil

95.      I involve myself with activities that exclude her automatically so she feels like her connection to me is broken, e.g., having a long conversation with an ex-girl friend; going to a bar with the boys and spending time there, instead of coming home to her; spending a lot of time at some hobby in which she cannot participate or in which I don't want her to participate; etc. etc.

96.      I embarrass her in public, or to her friends or company, or to the children; making a scene and spoiling the decorum and mood she wants to set or maintain

97.      I keep away from her at parties and gatherings, sticking with the men, avoiding the women's talk as disinteresting; or, if participating, then taking over and dominating the conversation or focus

98.      I don't mind letting a whole day go by without complementing her or her appearance or her work; taking her for granted, and making her feel that I'm taking her for granted instead of treating her like I think she is special, which is what she wants and needs

99.      I relentlessly pursue my topic, insisting on my opinion or judgment, suffocating her with my dominating power and rigidity and selfishness

100.   Sometimes I act like I don't want to have sex when she hints at it

101.   I refuse to give her veto power over what I want to wear, then embarrassing her by what I wear as if that decision is mine entirely

102.   I act disinterested in her aesthetic side so she ends up feeling neglected and needing friends who will give her attention

103.   I leave wet towels in the bathroom for her to pick up, like she were my slave, and then not acknowledging her charitable deed on my behalf

104.   I jab my fingers into my wife's ribs, and claim I'm just tickling, when really it's to make her flinch and struggle to pull away—a kind of obnoxious game violence

105.   I procrastinate in self-destructive ways (e.g. not getting forms filled out by a deadline, not taking care of needed repairs), then act like she's responsible for the remedies to the situation (like rushing to the post office for me, or making the phone calls to service people)

106.   (add your own)

You can see from the inventory of evils that the items are pretty universal and apply to every husband. You can also see that they are very specific and recur many times in the course of a single day. You can also see that there are thousands more that have not been written down. Many additional items are mentioned or described in Section 1 above and in the sections on disciplines below.

11. Six-Step Process For Removing Our Evils

The sequence of our moment to moment behaviors is made of three parallel or “simultaneous” levels integrated into a smooth flow: the motive, the reasoning, and the body’s actions. The motive is affective and resides in the will. The reasoning is cognitive and resides in the understanding. The body’s actions is sensorimotor and physical. Every single sensorimotor act is the effect, while the cause is the reasoning that is selected and driven by the motive. This threefold integration of the natural mind is like the threefold integration of the body, which corresponds to it: the heart and the circulation of the blood (affective; the will); the lungs and the respiratory system (cognitive; the understanding); and, the nervous system (sensory and motor activities). Clearly then, as we perform one of the behaviors on the inventory of evils, it is a threefold integration that allows us to perform it: our anti-conjugial motive or affection selects and drives the negative thinking about our wife, and the two acting to trigger the outward nasty, hurtful, and insensitive behavior. When we think of this integration we cannot dismiss these behaviors as relatively unimportant, due to family or cultural habits, and other such excuses.

Many believe that man is purified from evils by merely believing what the Church teaches; some, that man is purified by doing good; others, that it is by knowing, speaking and teaching such things as pertain to the Church; others, by reading the Word and books of piety; others, by attending churches, listening to sermons, and especially by approaching the Holy Supper; others, by renouncing the world and devoting oneself to piety; and others, by confessing oneself guilty of sins of all kinds; and so on.

Nevertheless, man is in no wise purified by all these works unless he examines himself, recognizes his sins, acknowledges them, condemns himself for them and does the work of repentance by desisting from them; and unless he does all these things as of himself but still in acknowledgment from the heart that he does them from the Lord.

[2] Until he does these things, the actions just mentioned avail nothing, for they are merit-seeking or hypocritical; and those who do them appear in heaven in the sight of angels like beautiful courtesans giving forth the offensive odor of their defilement; or like ill-favored women made to appear handsome by the application of paint; or like clowns and actors wearing masks on the stage; or like apes in human clothing.

When, however, men have removed their evils then the actions mentioned above are acts of their love, and they appear as beautiful men in heaven in the sight of angels and as their associates and companions. (DP 121)

Note well what the Lord is telling us here. Our evils cannot be removed unless we go through this sequence:

Examining the sequence of our daily willing and thinking

Identifying the evil behaviors at all three levels—what we will as our affections, what we think in our understanding, and what we execute in our outward acts

Acknowledging that if we don’t stop doing them, we go to hell (“condemning” oneself)

Repenting so that we can rationally see that they are selfish and evil

Desisting so that we no longer do them—in our willing, in our understanding, and in our outward acts

Knowing that the power to desist is from the Lord but that nevertheless we must struggle as-of self to bring it about

This six-step process must consciously be practiced as a daily and hourly discipline. If this seems exaggerated to you, ask yourself, what then is going to get rid of these evils in you? Are you relying on what the first paragraph says in the quoted passage above? Which lists these things:

Being purified from evils by merely believing what the Church teaches

Being purified by doing good things (as long as the good things outweigh the bad things)

Being purified by knowing, speaking and teaching things that pertain to the Church

Being purified by reading the Writings and books of piety

Being purified by worship in the Church (listening to sermons and approaching the Holy Supper)

Being purified by confessing oneself guilty of sins of all kinds

These are not going to get rid of your evils or neutralize them somehow. Only cooperation as-of self in getting rid of them will achieve the process, and without undergoing this process there can be no salvation and life in heaven. There are no exceptions! And how can the process go on if you don’t begin it and get it going? And is it not a most dangerous evil to postpone the beginning of it? Clearly then, you must make the decision to begin today, now at this hour!

He who leads a life of piety, and not at the same time a life of charity, does not worship God. It is true, he thinks of God, yet he does not think from God, but from himself; for he constantly thinks of himself, and not at all of the neighbour (NJHD 124)

Believing that you do not need to rid yourself of these evils in relation to your wife is called here a life of piety that is not at the same time in a life of charity. For charity to your neighbor refers to conjugial love to your wife, since this is the love that is to be placed above all other loves (xx).

God is loved when a man lives according to His commandments; and the neighbour is loved, when a man performs uses. In order therefore that a man may receive the life of heaven it is absolutely necessary that he live in the world, and engage in its various duties and vocations. (NJHD 126)

I did not struggle with my daily evils for many years. When my wife brought them forward I told her no one is perfect. When she asked me whether I think I can go to heaven with them, I replied that eventually I will get rid of them. When she pointed out that I do not know how long I have on this earth, I became anxious, but I still wanted to postpone getting rid of them. It was too much work, too soon, I felt. I can take it little by little, with more comfort, so the process doesn’t interfere with my pious activities studying the Writings and writing about it. But the passage above, and many others like it, should have told me that I do not love the Lord unless I obey His Commandments, and He commanded that we as-of self get rid of our evils so that we may be regenerated. And neither did I love my wife who is my neighbor in the house because I was willing to subject her to continued hurt from my evils. And neither did I love uses because loving self, willing to live with one’s evil affections, is not a use but contrary to use.

Hereditary evil derives its origin from everyone's parents and parents' parents, or from grandparents and ancestors successively. Every evil which they have acquired by actual life, even so that by frequent use or habit it has become like a nature, is derived into the children, and becomes hereditary to them, together with that which had been implanted in the parents from grandparents and ancestors. The hereditary evil from the father is more inward, and the hereditary evil from the mother is more outward. The former cannot be easily rooted out, but the latter can. When man is being regenerated, the hereditary evil enrooted from his nearest parents is plucked up by the roots; but with those who are not being regenerated, or who cannot be regenerated, it remains. (AC 4317)

We cannot be regenerated in the abstract or in the general. Only in the particular. And if we are regenerated in the particular, then we will have been regenerated in the general. Every particular evil in our affections is a spiritual fiber that lives on forever, unless rooted out by the Lord. And this rooting out or purification process is performed by the Lord—but only to the extent we cooperate, that is, we make lists of our evils, monitor their occurrence, and make a conscious effort to desist from it because it is contrary to the heavenly mind we must have to live in heaven. We have numerous such evils that we inherit and many more that we add prior to our reformation when we lead life in spiritual unconsciousness. Since there are these many thousands of evil affections we hold on to and enjoy, it takes years and years to go through them one by one. Clearly we cannot afford to postpone the process for one more day. And it is begun, we cannot afford to waste a single day in which we do not identify a bunch of them, and struggle consciously against them, thanking the Lord for supplying the power. And He is always willing, if only we are.

But what hereditary evil is, few know; it is believed to consist in doing evil; but it consists in willing and hence thinking evil; hereditary evil being in the will itself and in the thought thence derived; and being the very conatus or endeavor that is therein, and which adjoins itself even when the man is doing what is good. It is known by the delight that is felt when evil befalls another. This root lies deeply hidden, for the very inward form that receives from heaven (that is, through heaven from the Lord) what is good and true, is depraved, and so to speak, distorted; so that when good and truth flow in from the Lord, they are either reflected, or perverted, or suffocated. (AC 4317:[5])

Once again you can see from this passage that doing evil is the resultant effect of willing evil and the thinking derived from it. And willing evil is a love of the infernal or lust. It is something delightful to us. And note this very important statement: that the evil love in our willing “adjoins itself” to the good we are also willing, and therefore, corrupts it. The good we are doing, and the uses we are engaged in, are not genuine good because the evil we are also permitting in us, remains and corrupts unconsciously. Therefore we have no choice but to monitor our willing and thinking hour by hour and to go through the sex-step process outlined above.

12. The Marriage Of Good And Truth

Regeneration is the psychobiological activity of the Lord in our mind by which He conjoins His good to the truth we take in from His Word. When good is conjoined to truth in our mind, it is called a “marriage,” as in this passage:

There is, however, a marriage of good and truth in the cause, and there is a marriage of good and truth from the cause in the effect. The marriage of good and truth in the cause is a marriage of the will and the understanding, that is, of love and wisdom.

There is such a marriage in everything that a man wills and thinks, and in his consequent conclusions and purposes.

This marriage enters into the effect and, indeed, produces it; but in the process good and truth appear to be distinct, because what is simultaneous then produces what is successive. For instance, when a man wills and thinks about being fed, clothed, having a dwelling place, conducting any business, performing any work, or engaging in social intercourse, he first wills and thinks about these things, or forms his conclusions and purposes, simultaneously; but when he has reduced into effects what he has willed and thought, the one follows after the other; nevertheless, they continue to make one in his will and thought.

In these effects, uses pertain to love or good, while the means employed to furnish the uses pertain to the understanding or to truth. Anyone may confirm‎ these general truths by particular illustrations, provided he clearly perceives what has relation to the good of love and what to the truth of wisdom, and also how these are related in the cause and also in the effect. (DP 12)

This says that the threefold integration of our behavior is called by the Lord a “marriage.” The outward act involving the physical body is nothing but an automatic effect of the marriage of our will with the understanding. In other words, every act, at both the macro and micro levels, is the child or offspring of our willing and thinking. This is the marriage the Lord is talking about to us. The Lord’s intent is to create a celestial marriage in our mind in order that we may become angels—for this is His utmost desire, as He often reveals it in all Three Testaments of His Word. But in the Third Testament of His Second Coming He can at last reveal the rational principles by which He governs the universe and our regeneration. And so it has been amply shown in many places in the Writings that affections in our will remain forever because they are spiritual fibers, and as such immortal and indestructible. And yet the Lord has provided that He can uproot them, lay them aside so they can have no influence on the new will He gives us. But this requires our active and willing cooperation, and He has explained in the Writings what this cooperation must consist of.

We have been discussing this cooperation process throughout this book, and especially in Volume 2. The Lord calls it a marriage between the good He gives us in our new will and the truth we acquire in our understanding from His Word, in the First Education of the letter, and then in the Second Education of the spirit, when we undergo reformation in adult life (AE 803; AC 8780; AC 3518:[2]). Now we can understand this process at first in the general only, and then after regeneration is on its way, we can understand it in a particular way. And this particular understanding refers to the thousands of acts of willing and thinking we do in an hour and in a day. These particular acts must be witnessed and condemned, ad discussed above. The self-witnessing of our willing and thinking is our reformation and our regeneration, therefore our enlightenment and salvation, but only when put up the inner struggle to inhibit them, to desist from willing and thinking all the old things that must be uprooted by the Lord. And He does it to the extent that we cooperate willingly and effectively, that is, sincerely.

The inventory of evils in our willing and thinking can only be identified and built up when we monitor our willing and thinking all day long, hour by hour. In the Lord’s providence, to which I can testify, it is a task that is most arduous at first, but after just a few years of practice, or three to four thousand days, it no longer feels arduous, and then we bask in the bliss of understanding the Lord’s Word that His Yoke is easy (xx). And we continue our struggle until the end, but we have our love in it.

… the Lord continually flows in with man with good, and in good with truth; but man either receives or does not receive; if he receives, it is well with him; but if he does not receive, it is ill with him. If when he does not receive he feels some anxiety (here meant by "distress of soul"), there is hope that be may be reformed; but if he has no feeling of anxiety the hope vanishes.

With every man there are two spirits from hell, and two angels from heaven; for man being born in sins cannot possibly live unless on one side he communicates with hell, and on the other with heaven; all his life is thence.

When man is grown up and begins to rule himself from himself, that is, when he seems to himself to will and to act from his own judgment, and to think and to conclude concerning the things of faith from his own understanding, if he then betakes himself to evils, the two spirits from hell draw near, and the two angels from heaven withdraw a little; but if he betakes himself to good, the two angels from heaven draw near, and the two spirits from hell are removed.

[2] If therefore when a man betakes himself to evils, as is the case with many in youth, he feels any anxiety when he reflects upon his having done what is evil, it is a sign that he will still receive influx through the angels from heaven, and it is also a sign that he will afterward suffer himself to be reformed; but if when he reflects upon his having done what is evil, he has no anxious feeling, it is a sign that he is no longer willing to receive influx through the angels from heaven, and it is also a sign that he will not afterward suffer himself to be reformed.

… for with those who are then in anxiety there is an internal acknowledgment of evil, which when recalled by the Lord becomes confession, and finally repentance. (AC 5470)

You can clearly see from this passage that reformation occurs only in adult life, and only if all along, in our youth, we allowed our conscience to survive. For there are many who squelch, subdue, and eventually silence all conscience within them from the Lord. This is the anxiety we feel when we observe our evil willing and thinking. The anxiety is the consequence of allowing the angels to stay near us in our decisions and reflections. In this way we avoid giving ourselves totally over to the evil spirits and creating a permanent association with hell that later remains.  The passage also shows that reformation in adult life depends on “the things of faith in the understanding,” which means, the Doctrine we take up from the literal of the Writings. This Doctrine in the understanding then is made spiritual by the Lord who opens our spiritual mind to the extent that we cooperate. The passage also shows how important it is to maintain a good education and social atmosphere for the youth who are in our charge. This means teaching them about how to resist the nonduality of culture and science in their social environment.

It is known that faith from love is the essential means of salvation, and thus is the principle of the doctrine of the church; but since it is important to know how a man can be in such enlightenment as to learn the truths that must constitute his faith and in such affection as to do the goods that must constitute his love, and thus can know whether his faith is a belief in truth and his love a love of good, this shall be told in its proper order, as follows: (AE 803)

This passage (more is quoted below) outlines the details of how we can cooperate in our regeneration by the Lord, for without this cooperation the Lord cannot regenerate. Note that we cannot be regenerated without knowing spiritual truths by enlightenment from the Lord. We cannot obtain spiritual truths from self or from the literal of the Writings, as shown in several places above. Spiritual truths only come to us by means of enlightenment from the Lord when we read the Writings and apply its Doctrine to our willing and thinking. Note also that we cannot cooperate in our regeneration by means of the spiritual truths we acquire but only by means of the affections we have for them. When we have an affection or love for the spiritual truths that we receive by enlightenment, then and only then, do we have the motive “to do the goods that must constitute our love.”

13. Shunning Sins, Doing Good, And Performing Uses

How do we know whether the affection we have for doing good is genuine, that is from the Lord and not from self? For both are possible! We can have a love for doing good to others and for performing uses that is from self, not from the Lord. That is, we can love to do good and perform uses for selfish reasons such as reputation, gain, or merit. This is not from the Lord, hence its is not doing good actually, and it is not performing uses actually. Hence the Lord is giving us methods by which to know ourselves, whether we do good and perform uses form self or from Him. Several are outlined in the continuation of the passage (AE 803). The numbers are in the original.

(1) Let him read the Word every day, one or two chapters, and learn from a master and from preachings the dogmas of his religion … and that the Lord is the God of heaven and earth, … that the Word is holy, that there is a heaven and a hell, and that there is a life after death. (AE 803)

For the New Church mind this means that it is a Divine Commandment that we read the Writings every day. Also, that we receive our First Education in the literal of the Writings, called its scientifics (xx), from teachers and preachers, as well as from self-study. Throughout this education it must be believed that the Writings are holy and that all its dualities or spiritual truths, are the Divine Truth.

(2) Let him learn from the Word, from a master, and from preachings, what works are sins, and that they are especially adulteries, thefts, murders, false witness, and the others mentioned in the Decalogue; likewise that lascivious and obscene thoughts are also adulteries, that frauds and illicit gains are also thefts, that hatred and revenge are also murders, and that lies and blasphemies are also false witness; and so on. Let him learn all these things from childhood to youth. (AE 803)

This specifies what we are to learn in our First Education about the literal of the Writings: namely: which of our loves and deeds are sins. They include outward acts (“thefts, murders, false witness”), acts of thinking something (“lascivious and obscene thoughts”), and acts of loving something (“hatred and revenge”). Sins are therefore in our willing, in our thinking, and in our outward acts.

(3) When man begins to think for himself, which is the case after he has grown up, it must be to him the first and chief thing to refrain from doing evils for the reason that they are sins against the Word, thus against God, and for the reason that if he does them he will gain, not life eternal, but hell; and afterwards as he grows up and becomes old he must shun them as damned, and must turn away from them in thought and intention. (AE 803)

Note that we don’t begin to think from ourself until young adulthood when we are considered “grown up”—in today’s times and culture this means in our late twenties and early thirties. Even if you are born in the New Church religion, you do not begin your reformation until that time of adulthood. Until then our religion, worship, and understanding of the Writings are purely natural and do not yet have a spiritual internal. Internal worship is the only worship that saves (xx) and is the sole means by which we can be regenerated. Internal worship is by means of spiritual truths revealed by the Lord to an individual, to the extent that he is ready for it, that is, to the extent he is ready to cooperate with the Lord by fighting his sins. Those who pass into the spiritual world before the age of reformation must undergo this process in the world of spirits (xx).

But in order to so refrain from them and shun and turn away from them, he must pray to the Lord for help. The sins he must refrain from and must shun and turn away from are chiefly adulteries, frauds, illicit gains, hatreds, revenges, lies, blasphemies, and elation of mind. (AE 803)

Note that we must acknowledge that it is the Lord who is withholding us from evils but that we are to struggle as-of self to do this. The Lord cannot remove our evils unless we struggle as-of self to do this. Note also that these evils are in our behaviors and acts at all three levels, outward and inward. To will evil is an act. To think something obscene is an act. These inward acts are just as necessary to remove as the outward act. Generally in society, from a social and legal point of view, outward acts are more important to regulate, while inward acts are left to one’s freedom. But spiritually, the reverse is true. Inward acts are more important because the rule over the outward acts. “Hatreds” are acts of hating; blasphemies can be outward or inward acts, or both. Adulteries can be merely cognitive acts, like enjoying watching obscene movies or enjoying daydreaming about sexual acts that are forbidden or scandalous when performed outwardly. Illicit gains include the thought of cheating but not doing it out of fear of repercussions. Note that it is not the occurrence of these thoughts or feelings that is the sin, but our approving of them, that is, not shunning them.

(4) So far as man detests these evils because they are opposed to the Word, and thence opposed to God, so far there is granted him communication with the Lord, and conjunction is effected with heaven. (AE 803)

Conjunction with heaven and the Lord opens our spiritual mind by which we are regenerated. Note that this conjunction or communication only takes place when we detest our evils of willing and thinking. And further, to detest them because they are against the Writings, therefore against the Lord Himself.

For the Lord enters, and with the Lord heaven enters, as sins are removed; since these and their falsities are the sole hindrances. The reason is because man has been placed in the midst between heaven and hell, wherefore hell acts from the one side, and heaven from the other; therefore so far as evils that are from hell are removed, so far goods from heaven enter; for the Lord says:

Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hear and open the door, I will come in to him (Rev. 3:20). 

(AE 803)

The Lord desires nothing more than to grant us conjunction with Himself and heaven. But it says that sins hinder. He cannot enter until He removes our sins, and He cannot remove our sins until we allow it, for this is given to us by creation. Without this freedom we have of not allowing the Lord to remove our sins, we could never be regenerated and saved (xx). And so the Lord guarantees that we retain this spiritual freedom forever. Our spiritual freedom is achieved not from ourselves, but solely from being in balance between good forces from the angels and evil forces from the devils with which everyone is associated by the Lord so that they may have freedom of choice. And when sins are removed, “goods from heaven enter.” This refers to our new willing and thinking after reformation.

But if man refrains from doing these evils for any other reason than because they are sins, and are opposed to the Word and because thence to God, no conjunction of heaven with him is effected, because his refraining is from self, and not from the Lord. The Lord is in the Word, even so that He is called the Word (John 1:1-4), because the Word is from Him; consequently the conjunction of heaven with the man of the church is by means of the Word, as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell ... (AE 803)

By means of the Writings we have conjunction with the Lord because He is His Own Word and Divine Truth. This conjunction is only in proportion to sins being removed by means of the spiritual truths of doctrine from the Writings. If we only have the literal truths of the Writings, the Lord cannot enter, cannot remove sins, cannot regenerate us and save us. And the Lord gives us the spiritual truths within the letter to the extent that we detest our sins because they are contrary to the literal of the Writings.

(5) So far, then, as man detests these sins so far good affections enter. Then so far as he detests adulteries so far chastity enters; so far as he detests frauds and unlawful gains so far sincerity and justice enter; so far as he detests hatred and revenge so far charity enters; so far as he detests lies and blasphemies so far truth enters; and so far as he detests elation of mind so far humility before God and love of the neighbor as oneself enter; and so on. From this it follows that to shun evils is to do goods. (AE 803)

14. To Detest Evils And Sins

To shun the evils within our willing and thinking is to detest them. To detest our evils is to do good from the Lord. To do good from the Lord is to be saved. Everything about our regeneration depends therefore on our willingness to detest our evils. This willingness is at first extremely difficult to muster because we love our sins and we are unwilling to detest them. Hence we experience spiritual temptations which are states of despair and inward suffering and dread. The inward pain is felt on account of our realization that we must give up our delights of sin because they are contrary to heaven. It appears to us in those states that we are going to lose all the value of living that makes it worthwhile. But after the temptation process is over, the Lord gives us inward peace (xx) and the strength to detest our sins. Nor can this be accomplished generally, once and for all initiation or baptism, but gradually over time, after many many temptations in everyday situations over and over again, each time with a slight but significant variation. This is what we must be willing to go through.

(6) So far as a man is in these good affections he is led by the Lord and not by self; and so far as he acts from them so far he does what is good, because he does this from the Lord and not from self; and then he acts from chastity, from sincerity and justice, from charity, from truth, in humility before God; and from these no one can act from self. (AE 803)

Our goal in regeneration is to lose self and gain the Lord! And when we have gained the Lord we have immeasurable improved our condition of life, our happiness, our fulfillment, as well as the happiness of others who benefit from our love of uses, and especially our wife, for the greatest of all uses and all happinesses is the use of conjugial union. Such are we from creation, that we complete ourselves as perfect human beings in our heaven, in the conjugial union, while all else is meager in comparison to this human state.

(7) The spiritual affections that are granted by the Lord to him who is in them and who acts from them, are the affection of knowing and understanding the truths and goods of heaven and the church, together with the affection of willing and doing them; also the affection of combating with zeal against falsities and evils and dispersing them, both with himself and with others. From this man has faith and love, and from this he has intelligence and wisdom. (AE 803)

Where do we get intelligence and wisdom, the two things men long for and in which they feel their fullness of being? This passage tells us that it is from faith and love that we get intelligence and wisdom. If we pursue intelligence and wisdom from our self-intelligence and self-motivation, we only get stupidity and foolishness, no matter how learned and famous we become in our generation. But if we pursue faith and love, then we get intelligence and wisdom. And what is faith and love that we are to pursue? How do we pursue them? It says in the passage that we get faith and love by doing these two things: (1) “combating with zeal” the many evil affections in our will; (2) acquiring Doctrine from the Writings in our understanding (“truths and goods of heaven”) to guide and direct our combats against our evil affections. From these two actions we have faith and love that gives us the intelligence and wisdom that is the fullness of our being as a man.

(8) Thus and in no other way is man reformed; and so far as he knows and believes truths, and wills and does them, so far is he regenerated, and from natural becomes spiritual. The like is true of his faith and his love. (AE 803)

The faith and love we have from our willingness to undergo reformation and regeneration, is a spiritual faith and a spiritual love. These two things cannot exist in the natural mind. The spiritual mind must first be opened by the Lord so that spiritual faith and love can exist within us, within our natural mind that is otherwise empty and infernal. We become spiritual when our spiritual mind is opened by the Lord. This is a psychobiological process of growing spiritual fibers that coil in a special way and form our spiritual-body which we need to live in heaven (xx). There is no other way that the Lord has provided for our regeneration. He uproots the old evil affections in proportion to how much new spiritual fiber we allow Him to grow in us (xx). If the Lord should implant spiritual fibers at a greater rate than He uproots the old depraved fibers, what do you think would happen? We would suffer the agony of death and be destroyed forever. Therefore it says that we are regenerated “so far as we know and believe truths.” To “know truths” refers to our study of the Writings and extracting Doctrine for ourselves. To “believe truths” refers to compelling ourselves in our willing and thinking all day long, to conform to the Doctrine in our understanding.

[3] If evils have not been removed because they are sins nothing that a man thinks, speaks, wills, and does, is good or true before God, however it may appear as if good and true before the world. The reason is that they are not from the Lord but from man, since it is the love of the man and of the world from which they are, and which is in them. Most people at this day believe that they will come into heaven if they have faith, live piously, and do goods; and yet they do not turn away from evils because they are sins, consequently they either do them or believe them to be allowable; and those who believe them to be allowable do them when opportunity is given. (AE 803)

This passage refers to a most dangerous and pernicious nonduality that can destroy our regeneration and spiritual life. It is the equity model of good and evil. It is the belief that our good traits can outweigh our bad traits, and since no one is perfect, everybody has flaws which must hen be balanced as against their good. In relationships this belief expresses itself variously as “I am the way I am. Don’t try to change me. Take me as I am if you love me. Ignore my weaknesses, focus on my strengths. Nobody is perfect. Who can be the one to throw the first stone. Who is blameless? Who doesn’t have faults? It’s human. Etc.” (See the discussion on Unconditional love in Chapter 6, Section 7.) But this and many other passages teach the contrary, that there is no compromise or equity or balance between good and evil loves. They are in a discrete duality.

Every single evil affection must be uprooted and not a single one can be taken with us into heaven. This can only be done when we shun our evils as sins. Why? Because, as it says, if we shun them for reasons of reputation, gain, or merit we shun them from self, and not from the Lord, all things from self are infernal (xx). But when we shun our evil affections and delights because they are sins, we shun them from the Lord since sin is an idea that is connected directly to the Lord: we sin against Him when we love our evil delights! And this makes His goods unavailable to us, as a result of which we enter the life of misery from which we can never escape to eternity.

But let them know that their faith is not faith, that their pious things are not pious, and that their goods are not goods; for they flow from the impurities that lie inwardly concealed with man; and externals derive everything that they are from internals. For the Lord says:

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside may become clean also (Matt. 22:26).  (AE 803)

There is no equity in spiritual things, no continuum between evil and good, no compromise, but only absolute truth and absolute good distinct from all evil and falsity. Religious worship and piety are nothing when we fail to undergo reformation and then regeneration. The “inside of the cup” refers to our evil delights and their many false beliefs. The “outside of the cup” refers to our religious and pious behaviors, thoughts, and prayers. It says that these are not pious and not good unless we are sincerely struggling against our evil delights and false beliefs. “Sincerely” struggling against them means acquiring effective techniques to combat them rather than leave it up to circumstance, hope, promise, or wish fulfillment. It requires a conscious focus and discipline on a daily and hourly basis to be effective and real. Do you not agree? The shunning of our evil affections as sins against the Lord must be a forefront activity for our day, every day, don’t you think? How else can we get rid of each particular and specific delight and belief or idea? There is no general forgiveness and dispensation or propitiation of our evil attachments (xx). It’s a matter of a psychobiological gardening—the uprooting of each bad plant and the implanting of a new plant in its place. No other method has been provided by the Lord from creation! This He repeats to us man times in all Three Testaments.

From this it can now be seen that if a man were able to fulfill all things of the law, if he should give much to the poor, if he should do good to the fatherless and the widow, and if he should also give bread to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, take in the strangers, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and go to them that are bound in prison, if he should earnestly preach the Gospel, convert the Gentiles, frequent temples, listen devoutly to preachings, observe the sacrament of the Supper often every year, spend his time in prayer, and other things; and his internal has not been purified from hatred and revenge, from craftiness and malice, from insincerity and injustice, from the filthy delight of adultery, from the love of self and the consequent love of rule, and the pride of self-intelligence, from contempt of others in comparison with oneself, and from the other evils and their falsities; still all these works would be hypocritical and from the man himself, and not from the Lord. (AE 803)

The Lord makes a wonderfully helpful list of our evil delights—the spiritual fibers He must uproot for us, if only we Let Him. The first grouping is about religious, pious, humanitarian, and “spiritual” behaviors that are internally hypocritical because they depend and live from equity theory, or the cherished idea that our good traits and deeds outweigh our bad, so that we don’t have to struggle so hard against some of the evil delights we are unwilling to give up. This is the first grouping of our evil affections and thoughts that lead to damnation. The second grouping refers to the evil affections that we are unwilling to give up, that we are willing to keep: “hatred and revenge, craftiness and malice, insincerity and injustice, the filthy delight of adultery, the love of self and the consequent love of rule, and the pride of self-intelligence, from contempt of others in comparison with oneself.” Keep a list of these things and use it to organize the inventory of evils discussed above. These are the chief enemies of reformation and regeneration.

And yet these same works, when the internal has been purified, are all good, because they are from the Lord with man, and since the man is in the faith and in the love of doing these works he will do them as a matter of course. (AE 803)

There is no merit in doing good from the Lord. Doing good is to detest our evil affections, as discussed above. But note that it is not possible to do good except from the Lord, which for the New Church mind means that there is no doing good apart from the Writings, since it is the Lord in His Divine Truth. To do good from the Lord means that we compel our willing and thinking all day long to be in accord with the Doctrine from the Writings which is in our understanding.

This has been proved to me by a thousand examples in the spiritual world. I have there heard that it has been granted to many to recall the actions of their life in the world, and to enumerate the goods they had done; but when their internal was opened it was found to be full of every evil and the falsity therefrom; and it was then disclosed to them that the goods they had enumerated had been done from self, because for the sake of self and the world, and that they were full of evils from their interiors; and on this account they appeared either as if scorched with fire, or as if sooty. (AE 803)

The Lord has provided through the Writings all that the New Church mind needs to become a celestial mind capable of living in conjugial love in the New Heavens of the Divine Human. He is waiting for us to take the initiative to get there. He has provided only one way, which is, to undergo reformation and regeneration. He has explained how we are to do this, and if we obey, it will be well with us, but if we do not obey, it will be miserable with us to an unimaginable extent. Therefore the time to act is now! And the place to begin is with the wife, for she is the sine qua non of our success. She is the indispensable spiritual helpmate the Lord has created for our regeneration.