Heaven and Hell (Harley) n. 363

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363. Every man's ruling affection or love remains with him after death, nor is it rooted out to eternity, since a man's spirit is wholly what his love is, and what is an arcanum, the body of every spirit and angel is the outward form of his love, exactly corresponding to his inward form, which is the form of his "animus" and mind. Consequently, spirits are known as to their quality from their face, gestures, and speech. While a man is living in the world the quality of the spirit would be known if he had not learned to counterfeit in his face, movements, and speech that which is not his own. From this it can be confirmed that man remains to eternity such as his ruling affection or love is. It has been granted me to talk with some who lived seventeen centuries ago, and whose lives are well known from writings of that time, and it was found that the same love still rules them as is did then. It can also be confirmed from this that the love of riches, and of uses from riches, remains with everyone to eternity, and that it is exactly the same as the love acquired in the world, yet with the difference that in the case of those who devoted their riches to good uses, riches are changed in the other world into delights which are in accord with the uses performed; while in the case of those who devoted their riches to evil uses, riches are turned into mere filth, in which they then take the same delight as they did in the world in their riches devoted to evil uses. Such then take delight in filth because filthy pleasures and shameful acts, which had been the uses to which they had devoted their riches, and also avarice, which is a love of riches without regard to use, correspond to filth. Spiritual filth is nothing else.


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