CL 506. By the lust of varieties is not meant the lust of fornication, treated of in its own chapter. This latter, although wont to be promiscuous and roaming, does not bring in the lust of varieties except when it passes beyond bounds and the fornicator looks to number and from desire boasts thereof. This idea initiates the lust now treated of. But its nature as it progresses can be perceived distinctly only in a series. This series shall be as follows:

1. That by the lust of varieties is meant the utterly dissolute lust of whoredom.

2. That this lust is a love for the sex and at the same time a loathing.

3. That this lust utterly annihilates conjugial love with them.

4. That their lot after death is a miserable one because they have not the inmost of life.

The explanation of the above follows:

CL 507. I. That by the lust of varieties is meant the utterly dissolute lust of whoredom. This lust insinuates itself with those who in their youth have loosened the bonds of modesty and have not lacked plenty of harlots, especially if there was no question of wealth to spend on them. They have implanted and enrooted the lust within themselves by inordinate and unlimited whoredoms, by shameless thoughts about love of the female sex, and by confirmations that adulteries are not evil and are by no means sins. In its progression with them, this lust takes such increase that they desire the women of all the world and troops of them and a new one every day. Since this love separates itself from the common love of the sex implanted in every man, and absolutely from the love of one of the sex which is conjugial love, and casts itself into the exteriors of the heart as the delight of a love separate from the above loves and yet derived from them, therefore it is so deeply enrooted in the cuticles, that after the virile powers have become enfeebled, it remains in the touch. Such men make nothing of adulteries, and therefore think of the whole female sex as of a common harlot, and of marriage as of common harlotry. Thus they mix unchastity with chastity, and are insane from the mixture. What is meant by the statement that the lust of varieties is the utterly dissolute lust of whoredom is thus manifest.

CL 508. II. That this lust is a love for the sex and at the same time a loathing. They have love for the sex because from the sex is variety; and they have loathing for the sex because after the first taste they cast the woman off and direct their lust to others. This obscene lust burns towards a new woman, and after the heat, grows cold to her, and the cold is a loathing. That the lust is a love for the sex and at the same time a loathing may be illustrated thus: Place on the left hand a company of those women they have tasted, and on the right a company of those they have not tasted; would they not look upon the latter from love, and upon the former from loathing? yet both companies consist of the sex.

CL 509. III. That this lust utterly annihilates conjugial love with them is because the lust is utterly opposed to conjugial love, and so opposed that it not merely rends it but, as it were, grinds it to powder and thus annihilates it. Conjugial love is love directed to one of the sex, but this lust does not stop with one but an hour or a day later is as intense with cold for her as it had previously been hot. And because the cold is a loathing, by forced cohabitation and living together this loathing piles up even to disgust, and conjugial love is so far consumed that no remnant is left. It can be seen from the above that this lust is deadly to conjugial love; and since conjugial love makes the inmost life with man, that it is deadly to his life; also that, by successive interceptions and closings of the interiors of the mind, it finally becomes cutaneous, and thus merely alluring, the faculty of understanding, that is, rationality, nevertheless remaining.

CL 510. IV. That their lot after death is a miserable one because they have not the inmost of life. Every one has pre-eminence of life according to his conjugial love; for this life conjoins itself with the life of the wife, and by the conjunction exalts itself. But because with these men not the least remnant of conjugial love is left, and hence nothing of the inmost of life, therefore their lot after death is a miserable one. After passing a period of time in their externals, during which they speak rationally and act civilly, they are let into their internals, and then into the same lust and its delights in which they had been in the world, and in the same degree thereof. After death everyone is let into that state of life which he has appropriated to himself, to the end that he may be led out of it; for no one can be led away from his evil unless he has first been led into it, otherwise the evil would hide itself and pollute the interiors of his mind, and spreading like a pestilence, would finally burst the barriers and destroy the externals which are of the body. To this end brothels on the side of hell are open to them, where are harlots with whom there is opportunity of varying their lusts; but this is granted them with only one harlot a day, and it is forbidden them under penalty to be with more than one on the same day.

[2] Afterwards, when they have been examined (and it is found) that the lust is so inbred that they cannot be led away from it, they are taken to a certain place which is directly over the hell assigned to them. To themselves they then appear as though falling into a swoon, and to others, as though sinking down with upturned face. The ground under their backs is actually opened and they are swallowed up and sink down into the hell where are their like. They are thus gathered to their own. It was given me to see them there, and also to speak with them. Among themselves they appear like men, this being granted them that they may not be a terror to their companions; but at some distance they appear with a white face consisting, as it were, of skin only, and this because within them is no spiritual life, everyone having this according to the conjugial implanted in him.

[3] Their speech is dry, parched, and sad. When hungry, they lament, and their lamentations are heard as a peculiar snorting. They have tattered garments, and their breeches are drawn up over the belly around the breast because they have no loins, the ankles of their feet starting from the lowest part of their belly, and this because with men the loins correspond to conjugial love, and this they do not have. Because they have no potency, they said that they loathe the sex. Yet among themselves they can reason about various matters as if from rationality; but because they are cutaneous, they reason from the fallacies of the senses. Their hell is in the western quarter towards the north. At a distance they appear, not as men, nor as monsters, but as things of ice. It should be known, however, that those become such who are so imbued with that lust that they have rended the human conjugial with themselves and annihilated it.