. No one can know what good is, as understood in the spiritual sense, unless he knows what love toward the neighbor and love to God are; and no one can know what evil is, unless he knows what the love of self and the love of the world are Nor can anyone know from inward acknowledgment what the truth is which is of faith, unless he knows what good is, and unless he is in good; nor can anyone know what falsity is, unless he knows what evil is. Consequently no one can examine himself unless he knows what good from its two loves is, and what truth from good is; and unless he knows what evil from its two loves is, and what falsity from evil is.
. There are two faculties in man, one is called the understanding, and the other the will; the will has been given man for the sake of the good which is of love, and the understanding for the sake of the truth which is of faith; for the good which is of love has relation to the will, and the truth which is of faith has relation to the understanding; the one faculty communicates in a wonderful way with the other. They join themselves together in those who are in good and thence in truth; and they also join themselves together in those who are in evil and thence in falsity: with both classes these two faculties make one mind. But it is otherwise with those who are in truth as to faith, and in evil as to life; and also with those who are in falsity as to faith, and in apparent good as to life.
. Man is not allowed to divide his mind, and to sunder these two faculties from each other; that is, to understand and speak truth, and to will and do evil; for then one faculty would look upward or toward heaven, and the other downward or toward hell, and thus the man would hang between the two. But let him know that the will carries him away, and the understanding favors. From all this it is evident how the case is with faith and with love, and how with the state of man if they are separated.
. Nothing is more necessary to man than to know whether heaven be in him, or hell; for in one or the other he must live to eternity. In order that he may know this, it is necessary that he should know what good is, and what evil, for good makes heaven, and evil makes hell; the doctrine of charity teaches about both.
. Love to God is said, and by this is meant love to the Lord, for there is no other God; the Father is in Him (John 14:9-11), and the Holy of the Spirit is from Him (John 16:13-15).
ON THE INHABITANTS AND SPIRITS OF THE PLANET VENUS
. In the planet Venus there are two kinds of men, of contrary disposition, one kind savage and almost like wild beasts, and the other gentle and humane. They who are savage and almost like wild beasts appear on the side of the planet looking our way; but they who are gentle and humane, on the opposite side. Be it known, however, that they so appear according to the states of their life, for the state of life makes all the appearance of place and space.
. In the idea of spirits the planet Venus appears to the left, a little behind, at some distance from this earth. It is said "in the idea of spirits" because neither the sun of the world nor any planet appears to any spirit; but spirits merely have an idea that they exist, and according to this idea they appear--the sun of the world behind them as something very dark, the planets not moving about, as in the world, but constant in their places (n. 7171).
. I have been told that the inhabitants of that planet who when they die and become spirits appear on this side, are very much delighted with plunder, and especially with eating of their plunder; their delight when they think about eating of their plunder was communicated to me, and I noticed that it was intense. That there have been inhabitants on this earth also of such a ferine nature, is plain from the histories of various nations, also from the inhabitants of the land of Canaan (1 Sam. 30:16), and likewise from the Jewish and Israelitish nation even in the time of David, in that they made yearly raids, and plundered the nations, and rejoiced over their prey. As regards these inhabitants of the planet Venus, they are indeed delighted with plunder, but yet are not cruel. They cast the men whom they rob into the water, and so put them to death, but they save as many as they can; and those whom they so put to death they afterward bury, a sign that they have some humanity. In this they differ from the Jews, who took delight in casting out those whom they slew, and exposing them to be devoured by the beasts of the forest and by the birds, and sometimes in putting them to death in a savage and cruel manner (2 Sam. 12:31). How much delight the Jews had in such things, it was also given me to perceive from the sphere of many of them communicated to me, who approached quickly and then fled away.
. I was also told that the inhabitants of that earth are for the most part giants, the inhabitants of our earth reaching only to their navel; and also that those who appear on this side of that earth are stupid, making no inquiry about heaven, or about eternal life, but caring only for what concerns their land and their cattle.
. Being of this character, when they come into the other life they are very much infested by falsities and evils. Their hells appear around that earth, and do not communicate with the hells of the evil of our earth, because they are of a wholly different genius and disposition; hence also their evils and falsities are of quite another kind. But they who are such that they can be saved are in places of vastation, and are there reduced to the extremity of despair; for evils and falsities of that kind cannot be removed in any other way. When they are in a state of despair, they cry out that they are beasts, brutes, abominations, hatreds, and thus that they are damned. Some of them when in such a state cry out also against heaven, but for this they are excused, because it is from despair. The Lord moderates it, lest they should break out into reproaches beyond certain fixed limits. When they have suffered to the utmost, as their bodily things are then as it were dead, they are at last saved.
. I have also been told about them that when they lived on their earth they believed in a Supreme Creator, with out a Mediator. These are they who are so vastated, and finally saved, when they have first been instructed and have received the instruction that the Lord is the only God, Saviour, and Mediator. I have heard them confess that without a Mediator it would be impossible for them to be saved, because they are filthy and unworthy. I have also seen some of them, after suffering to the utmost, taken up into heaven, and when they were received there, I observed from them such a tenderness of gladness as drew tears from my eyes.
. The inhabitants and spirits of Venus who appear on the other side of that earth, are of an almost contrary disposition, being gentle and humane. It was granted of the Lord that some of these spirits should come thence to me, and then they appeared near above the head. In talking with me they said that when they were in the world they acknowledged, and now more fully acknowledge, our Lord as their only God. They said that in their earth they had seen Him, walking among them, and they also represented in what manner they had seen Him.
. These spirits have relation in the Grand Man to the memory of material things that corresponds to the memory of immaterial things which the spirits of the planet Mercury constitute. See the description of the spirits of Mercury, (n. 7170).
. At the end of the following chapter I will speak of the inhabitants and spirits of the planet Mars.
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