Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands--Part 3--A Spiritual Practice for Achieving Unity in Swedenborg Glossary by Leon James

I would be delighted to know your reactions. Please email Leon James: leon@hawaii.edu

Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands: A Spiritual Practice for Achieving Unity

It's important to keep in mind that the series of six steps in regeneration is recursive at all levels. In other words, while you're in your infancy period (WHITE consciousness) you will be stepping through six phases of the infancy period. The first is the Infancy of Infancy stage (WHITE OF WHITE consciousness--see this article for a chart that depicts this). The second phase within the Infancy period is the Childhood phase of the infancy period (YELLOW of WHITE segment). And the sixth phase of the infancy period (BLACK of WHITE segment) is called the Old Age of Infancy. Similarly, there is going to be a BLACK OF GREEN segment immediately prior to the inversion, and immediately after, a WHITE of BLUE segment. And so on. This is what it means to say that the six steps are recursive at all levels and sub-levels.

This means that you need to know what all six phases are no matter what phase you're in. You can't say, for instance, Well, I'm in the GREEN period still, so I don't need to know what the BROWN or BLACK degree means. The fact is that the BLACK degree, which is called the Church of Unity, and is made of the Doctrine of the Wife, has to be the end goal of any period you're going through. The end goal is that which must inside every segment that actually leads to that goal. You need a way of insuring that the Doctrine of the Wife will be the end within every segment of your regeneration pathway. This insurance is obtained when you learn and adopt the rhetoric of BLACK consciousness.

BLACK consciousness is the striving from the internal mind to gain control over the disorderly outer mind. We need to allow influx from our internal mind, which is spiritual and rational, into our external mind, which is natural and sensuous. Striving for unity with the wife in every interaction is something in the internal mind. Opposing this striving is something in the external mind. The internal mind must gain control over the external mind. BLACK consciousness is a method we can use to insure the success of this necessity. BLACK consciousness is just another way of saying the Doctrine of the Wife.

The chart below, matrix 3, will help you become familiar with the rhetoric of BLACK consciousness. This means that you will be able to confirm the Doctrine of the Wife when it is being challenged by the hoards to which you're still connected. This connectedness to the hells we all have from inheritance in addition to acquired evils of our own. God has provided that truths be implanted in our internal rational mind at a time when we don't even think about it. Our daily experiences and cumulating biography are encapsulated and abstracted into what we call self-knowledge or conscious awareness of ourselves as husbands. This self-awareness is a fiction designed to pull us into hell.

The reality is that our self-awareness is an abstraction or fiction based on the kind of reputation we would like to have with ourselves. This desire is from hell. And it takes us there as surely as a strong undercurrent drags the unaware swimmer out into the open sea where it is only with difficulty, if at all, that the tired swimmer can return to shore and safety. This is how our connectedness to the hells slowly and inexorably draws us into its bosom where the hoards are awaiting to incorporate one more failed Pinocchio. But do not think that this is a system run amuck. God is the one who makes all this work in the way it works.

And so God provides the orderly way in which we clean up our personality and our character, provides the motivation to do it, the power to carry it out, the persistence to continue in the face of temptations, and provides the rewards and awards of the final outcome, which is paradise and heaven to eternity in married bliss and unity.

God is with us every step of the way and directs every little detail Himself, Personally, with Love and Grace and infinite wisdom and power!

This He does out of Divine Love which intensely desires nothing more than to be conjoined to created human beings. In this conjoining God can give us what He ardently desires to give, namely eternal bliss and happiness, creativity, wisdom, power, unending striving for uses and success.

And all this is called "heaven." And heaven means to be conjoined to God. And there is only one way to be in heaven, and that is the married way. A husband and a wife together and united make one angel. And heaven is inhabited only by angels. A single person cannot inhabit heaven, as confirmed by Swedenborg in his many travels to heaven. Such is the universe God has created because such is His Love. God is Love, you've heard that, but people don't generally know that this Love is Conjugial Love, which means married love between husband and wife. This is what makes the planets go around. This is what makes heaven be a real thing. Amen!

The Doctrine of the Wife is a collection of truths taken from the Writings of Swedenborg. These are the truths you use to achieve success in BLACK conscious, which simply refers to the interior celestial rational mind into which the celestial angels act and with which they communicate. Interior rational truths come in three degrees of depth (or height): natural rational, spiritual rational, and celestial rational. These correspond to the three ascending steps (BLUE, BROWN, BLACK) as discussed throughout this article.

I should perhaps briefly address an issue that might be a hindrance to some readers. Why am I focusing everything about regeneration on BLACK consciousness, or the Doctrine of the Wife, which is an idea of my own invention--is this not giving it too much emphasis for subjective or personal reasons? I would answer that the Doctrine of the Wife is actually the inner sense of "conjugial love." This perspective serves uses in the regeneration of men or husbands. The Doctrine of the Wife is a motivational power tool for husbands, with which they can extract themselves as-of-self from the morass in which they swim and drown before they enter the third ascending step, and throughout that period until separation from the physical body.

This motivational tool is needed, there is no doubt about that. It is not rational to think that we can be regenerated when we stop ourselves from being taken by the Lord on the rocky road of celestial temptations. It takes an inner power tool to face and overcome celestial temptations. The tool based on the literal of the Writings called above the Doctrine of the Church (BROWN consciousness) is not sufficient because it leads to heresies that must be overcome through interior celestial rational truths (BLACK consciousness). In order to understand this more clearly consider the next chart (matrix 3) below.

The chart above (matrix 3) helps you investigate your own hidden views about women and marriage. It lines up the three ascending steps parallel to each other on several "trigger" issues in the "spiritual psycho-politics" of gender. The husband cannot regenerate without building up inner rational truths about marriage. There are three such inner degrees of truth. Each ascending step brings you the capacity to understand the next inner degree of truth about marriage. These inner truths are seeds implanted by the Lord in your mind through the presence of the angels: the natural angels in your first ascending step (BLUE), the spiritual angels in your second ascending step (BROWN), and the celestial angels in your third ascending step (BLACK).

Your job in reading the chart is to confirm each part of it in relation to yourself, your marriage, your role and behavior as husband..

This is why this section is called Learning the Rhetoric of BLACK consciousness.

The purpose of learning the rhetoric of the Doctrine of the Wife is to give you the intellectual tool you need to overcome your celestial temptations. We all need these tools and we all can benefit from each other's discoveries and illustrations from the Lord as we study the Writings.

Each ascending step of the husband has its own rational view of religion in relation to women. In the first step which follows immediately after the inversion, our rational consciousness is grounded in traditional gender views that are justified by selective attention to particular literal statements in Sacred Scripture. You can see that there is an element of rationality here because one's perspective on women is validated by sentences that appear in the Word of God. Obviously this recognizes a higher authority than self. For instance adultery is forbidden in the literal of the Word and so a husband's desire for adultery must be denied by him, that is, put aside and made of no effect. It is not possible for him to justify adultery without denying the Word and therefore God.

But this rational attitude (BLUE consciousness) in the husband's mind is a mixed rational, not a pure rational. A pure rational is from spiritual origin and is not dependent at all on any natural justification. The spiritual rational must be from revelation, from God through the Word or through the angels. The pure rational is from the spiritual world only, hence it is called "spiritual-rational" (BROWN consciousness). The "natural-rational" (BLUE consciousness) is not entirely from the spiritual world, so it is mixed. BLUE consciousness, or the first ascending step after crossing the inversion, gives us some growth in the rational mind (internal mind), but not the pure rational. And yet it is the pure rational we need for regeneration. Hence another ascending step will be required.

The chart gives the title "The Church of Submission" to this "natural-rational" state of mind (BLUE consciousness). It is based on fundamentalism in marriage, or the idea that husbands can justify putting themselves ahead of wives on the basis of the literal statements of Sacred Scripture. The possibility that this attitude is from hell does not enter our consciousness in this state. When contrary passages in the Word are brought to our attention, we overlook them, pass them over, or attribute them to the incomplete mind of the prophet or revelator who wrote those sentences in the name of God, or possibly to the translator, or the changes that were introduced by error over the generations of reproducing those sentences. Whatever the explanation, we remain in the persuasion of the Church of Submissiveness of Women. This is a Church of Satan. Its use in our regeneration is to allow the Lord to bring natural-rational temptations to our awareness. This is done with the help of the natural angels who are with us in this state.

Let's view again the list of BLUE temptations that go with this period (see matrix 2 above):

IV

YOUNG ADULTHOOD

BLUE

NATURAL

RATIONAL

SURRENDER

vs.

PREROGATIVES

** treating his wife severely ** making her feel guilty, sinful ** insisting on male prerogatives ** quotes the Bible to her to justify himself ** likes the philosophy of male chauvinism ** indulges himself and puts himself ahead of his wife ** demanding things from his wife and insisting ** etc. etc.

These are the temptations of the Church of Submission of Wives. The theme conflict is Surrender vs. Prerogatives. That is, as husbands in the mental state we try to hold on to male privileges and perks we want our wives to treat us with. And further, we are willing to justify this desire by using Sacred Scripture to say to our wife: Now, you do this as I tell you because I am your husband appointed by God. Or, Now don't disobey me or you're sinning against God. Etc.

But all this is a shambles, a Wizard of Oz trick behind which there is no power, no future--just disappointment and hell. We must face this fundamentalism and see that submission of the wife is not rational, is not what God wants, is not Divine Truth. It is only an appearance of rational called natural-rational, and is not really truly spiritual-rational.

When we thus face these natural-rational temptations, see them in ourselves as irrational and destructive and anti-God, then we receive the power to overcome these temptations by means of higher rational truths called spiritual-rational. And as we use these higher truths, we end our prison within BLUE consciousness and step into BROWN consciousness territory. From here, for the very first time, we can experience the spiritual-rational.

This spiritual-rational consciousness (second ascending step) views religion in relation to women as being needed as an integral part of the Church. It is named here the Church of Balance because in this state of mind we view women as being assigned by God the task of balancing the state and activities of the men as they go about their task of building the Church and society. This is the theme of Specialization vs. Insecurities, as discussed in the chart above (matrix2). Women are seen by men as having a purpose in man's life, a purpose assigned to women by God. Eve is presented to Adam as an help mate taken from his rib so that he may not feel alone with the animals.

And so BROWN consciousness sees women as fulfilling God's purpose of balancing men's lives, taming man, softening the harshness of men. All this is true of course, as it is written in the Writings. The problem is that these facts from the Writings are taken as Doctrine to justify the idea of specialization. This perspective ignores other passages that spring to the focus in BLACK consciousness, passages in which women are portrayed as united with the masculine, whose function it is to conjoin the masculine to herself, to connect the man to herself. Instead, in BROWN consciousness, women are seen as providing a needed "sphere" for the Church and for the family. This womanly sphere is exalted and praised, but it is kept underneath men, or surrounding them from the exterior. In the interior, the men remain separated in their own sphere. There is no desire to eliminate the masculine sphere in favor of the feminine--this would actually be seen as sacrilegious.

Note that the BROWN ideas are purely rational because entirely from the Word. The Writings have extensive passages dealing specifically with the role of women in relation to men and the Church. In this BROWN consciousness phase we gather and collect and arrange the literal statements of the Writings that pertain to a particular topic. And the specific collection or list is then titled "The Doctrine of the Church" in relation to this or that subject. This is how we establish in our minds the idea of Specialization and the Doctrine of Balance. More on this approach as we discuss the other topics in the chart.

But even this purely rational, or spiritual-rational consciousness, must face new temptations called spiritual-rational temptations. Here is the list again of BROWN temptations from matrix 2:

V

ADULTHOOD

BROWN

SPIRITUAL

RATIONAL

SPECIALIZATION

vs.

INSECURITIES

** feeling disapproval for his wife ** being intolerant of something about his wife ** fears the feminization of religion, wanting gender roles and rules ** puts the Church ahead of the wife ** rejects affirmative action for husbands (like the Doctrine of the Wife or, feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society) ** does not mind using gender biased language like "man" and "he" ** secretly believes in the intellectual inferiority of women ** doesn't mind if the wife feels "closed out" from a portion of his life ** is willing to remain in conjugial cold in his internal mind as long as he feels heat towards her in the external mind ** does not feel responsible for his wife's insecurities stemming from the doctrine of specialization ** does not feel sympathy for the insecurities she has about gender role divisions and how these interfere with conjugial love ** etc. etc.

The theme conflict for this period is called Specialization vs. Insecurities. As discussed above, this refers to the insecurities in the wife engendered by the husband's support for and love of the doctrine of specialization. The list of temptations above shows clearly how the husband produces these insecurities by means of his spiritual concepts based on the literal of the Writings and which he takes for Doctrine of the Church.

In order to overcome these temptations we must abandon our loyalty to the doctrine of specialization that leads to the wife's insecurities. We must care and be affected by these insecurities. We must be motivated to heal her from these insecurities. We must not be content with the idea that these insecurities are something the wife must learn to live with since they are caused by her rejection of the Word. These ideas separate us from her, prevent our unity.

And so we must once again take the next ascending step, switch over to the celestial angels who can now instruct us in celestial-rational truths. These are the ultimate weapons for the conquest of the last frontier. These are the rational truths that make up BLACK consciousness.

As the chart shows, the third ascending step is called the Doctrine of the Wife and its conflict theme is Unity vs. Disconnection. The unity referred to is the unity that is the result of complementarity--husband and wife individually are incomplete human beings, but together they complete each other and form one full or completed human being called "an angel." This character of the celestial-rational truths collected under the title Doctrine of the Wife can be seen more clearly as the other topics of the chart are discussed next.

You can see the three steps parallel to each other. The first state of rational consciousness is natural and perceives the wife in a position of subordination to the husband. In the second step, we see ourselves as men acting a "leadership" role with regards to spiritual matters and truths. But in the last step we see ourselves as a portion of our wife and we see her as in the upper portion.

You might experience a rebellion to the idea that the wife is in an upper portion and the husband in a lower portion with respect to wisdom and spiritual things. You might wonder whether this is not going overboard and represents just the interpretation Leon James puts on things, his spiritual spin on the subject, as it were. But all these protestations are nothing but a throw back on earlier modes of consciousness, for example this: Well, why not make the husband's and the wife's portions of equal value. Why do you have to make her portion higher, and his, lower.

This preoccupation with Equity was the theme in GREEN consciousness, prior to the inversion. It was also reinforced in BLUE consciousness after the inversion, and carried on in BROWN consciousness. Now it surfaces again as an opposition to the idea that the wife's wisdom is in a higher state than the husband's when it comes to spiritual and celestial matters. At least make them equal--begs this lower form of consciousness.

What opposes unity in BLACK consciousness is Disconnection, as discussed above in relation to matrix 1. Here again now is the list of BLACK temptations:

VI

OLD AGE

BLACK

CELESTIAL

RATIONAL

UNITY

vs.

DISCONNECTION

** expresses impatience to his wife ** discounts in his mind what wife wants or thinks ** does not value something his wife values ** automatically believes himself before he believes his wife ** likes the idea of treating women special, yet is inwardly proud of his maleness ** is inclined to love his own wisdom before his wife's ** says that he puts the wife ahead of the Church, but doesn't ** says he accepts the Doctrine of the Wife, but makes exceptions when he feels like it ** practices the principle of affirmative action for husbands (=feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society), but only on a part time basis ** dedicated to unity and eternity, yet tolerates separation when convenient ** disconnects himself from his wife as soon as she stands up to him, immunizing his emotions so she can't bother him or "get to him" ** feels self-sufficient in his internal mind, untouchable, independent ** enjoys his wife's frustration at not being able to get to him on the inside (influence him or make him back off) ** practices being a countercurrent to his wife, enjoying the sense of power ** etc. etc.

Here clearly we have the vastation of our life in its very ultimates, because these are from the very firsts. The Writings say that each heaven must have a corresponding hell that matches the closeness of the truths to the Divine in terms of distance from the Divine. Each truth in the angel's mind descends gradually to a lower heaven and then to the spiritual world and then to the hells, in turn, until it reaches the hell where this particular truth is its exact opposite, and there it rests. So the truths in the highest angels are matched in opposition to the falsities of the lowest devils. High-low in the spiritual world is measured by the purity vs. falsification of Divine truths.

This is why celestial-rational temptations are from the lowest hells that any husband can attain. The lower the hell, the less aware we are of their connectivity to our mind. So the BLACK temptations are the last that we can endure. The Lord cannot bring them to us and hope for victory, until we have acquired celestial-rational truths. The Doctrine of the Wife is a collection of such truths. Let's take up the next subject in the chart (matrix 3):

The issue is the husband's philosophy of life in relation to women. The philosophy of life is the intellectual apparatus in his mind as he operates day to day. The part of this masculine apparatus that deals with relationship to women involves, at the BLUE consciousness level, the idea that men naturally have their membership and initiation into the masculine "brotherhood" and that in order for this to be successful, women should and must be excluded. This attitude covers both secular institutions (or brotherhoods) and religious (e.g., the priesthood).

One step up from this philosophy of separatism is the idea in BROWN consciousness that women are really a necessary part of men--their development and life, but separation periods or phases are legitimate and necessary. This is the "part time" brotherhood idea, following which the man must "reconnect" to the feminine, the feminine sphere and influence, in order to avoid going off balance. But in the next step up (BLACK consciousness) we heal this gender-ordained sectarianism with the idea that men are never to be separated from women and are never to engage in their growth activities separate from women. And this can only be true of the husband and the wife.

You no doubt are beginning to see a pattern as our consciousness moves from first (natural), to second (spiritual), to third (celestial) ascending step. It is always the same: the inherent desire on the part of the husband to find a justification for not uniting to the wife. And the type of justification put forth is particular to each step. The temptations husbands must go through is marked for each step. Let us continue with the next subject in parallel comparison between the three ascending steps of regeneration:

During the first ascending step we bring together selections from the literal of Sacred Scripture in order to justify our demand for surrender and submission by the wife and women in general. Men have a special relationship to God, by creation. Men are called Sons and Heirs of God, but women are called daughters, and they have less rights and privileges, even though they do have some. But in the second ascending step we see this position as bogus. Looking at the literal statements of the Writings we are instructed that "Sons of God" actually refers to any individual, male or female, who loves and obeys God, and is thereby regenerated, inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven.

We can see the bogus trick in our earlier consciousness where we pretended that "Sons of God" means men, excluding women because "Sons" is a male term. This bogus trick is no longer possible with the Second Advent and the Writings of Swedenborg where these expressions from the Old and New Testaments are explained in their rational reference. Similarly, "brotherly love" means love to the neighbor. Daughters means the Church or truths of the Church in its Doctrine. And so with this new knowledge we can see that we ought to look upon men and women as equal in the eyes of God, each of us individuals, whether male or female, relating to God and loving Him. But from hindsight as we enter the third ascending period, we begin to suspect and dislike the idea that men and women are individuals in the eyes of God, irrespective of their gender, and so on.

We can see that this idea is just another version of specialization, as discussed already. And instead we see the celestial-rational version, namely, that men and women as individuals are incomplete human beings and cannot partake fully of a relationship to God. It is only in our united status as conjugial couple that we can stand as an individual angel, a true human being. The man alone cannot stand with God, but only as a portion to his wife. Then he can stand before God as an angel, pure and rational and complete.

The husband's mind on his own as an individual cannot be rational, cannot understand celestial-rational truths. But the husband can understand celestial-rational truths and live them, when he is united to his wife as a portion. And this "complimentary" portion is such that he is the love of her wisdom and thus his life is in accordance to her wisdom, not in accordance to his own wisdom standing as an individual.

Recall that in the earlier BLUE consciousness we see truth and faith as masculine. We rely for this idea on selected sentences we pick from the Word and then call them the authority of Sacred Scripture to back up our expectations and demands from the wife. Then, in the second ascending state (BROWN consciousness), we back off this strict sectarianism between the genders and declare faith and truth to be masculine, but also having feminine aspects. This admission, or intellectual position, is forced on us by the literal of the Writings in which we are explicitly instructed that truth is sometimes symbolized in Sacred Scripture as masculine and sometimes as feminine.

Of course this idea already exists in prior states of consciousness. Even the Greeks had goddesses for intellectual traits or truth and justice. But this idea is not rational since we still think that truth is "basically" masculine, that God is basically a "male," that a priest must be represented by a male because Christ was a male. And so on, including the warning that one must stay away from any ideas having to do with the "Feminine Divine," or the "Divine Mother," etc. We have the firm persuasion in this state of mind, that the masculine is the primary gender in religion, in God, in holy things having to do with God, with Doctrine, and so on. Thus the feminine is an excluded lower portion, or a separated lower portion. And if not this, then the feminine has its own sublime functions in relation to religion and God, but only as secondary to the masculine, which is to be primary .

This bogus position from the BROWN consciousness period, is clearly seen through when you move on to the next step, the last step (BLACK consciousness, third ascending step). You can always look back on a preceding step and see things more clearly than when you were in that lower degree. But you cannot look up or ahead to the next degree, and see anything at all. In BLACK consciousness you perceive clearly that the feminine is the primary portion or position in the universe and in the spiritual world and in heaven. "Primary" means interior, as taught in the Writings. And the wisdom of women is more interior than the wisdom of men, plainly taught in the Writings. The wisdom of women (symbolized by "Sarah" in the Old Testament) is a moral wisdom, an inner wisdom. This wisdom is referred to as Divine Truth in the Writings. But the wisdom of men is never referred to as Divine. It is a lower wisdom called intellectual wisdom.

So its' not a mystery or amazing news to anyone familiar with the Writings that women's wisdom is in a primary relation to the universe, while men are in a secondary status. We recognize this idea in our prior state of consciousness (BROWN, spiritual-rational), but we don't act on it. We lower it in our focus and estimation, while we raise the other focus, which is that the masculine is primary. The Doctrine of the Wife explains itself by integrating the passages that were selected before (in BROWN consciousness--The Church of Balance) with the passages selected and adjoined to them in BLACK consciousness--The Church of Unity.

One of the most enlightening revelations given in the Writings of Swedenborg is the rational that men are born oriented towards the love of the sex while women are born oriented towards the love of one of the sex. This rational distinction about male and female sexual characteristics is of course echoed in some obscure way by the traditional "double standard" that seems to exist in most societies--on this earth at least. Society's norms for men's sexual activities are more liberal or permissive than the norms for women. There are differences of course in terms of culture, religion, and education. Nevertheless, as we can gauge from history books and anthropology reports, the double standard is universal. The question then is what's behind this universality; what does it indicate about men?

The revelations in the Writings on the topic of conjugial love give clear rational answers, and one of them is that men are born with the love of the sex while women are born with the love of one of the sex. This spiritual genetic distinction and difference explains the double standard and many other difficulties men have in becoming regenerated and achieving marital unity with his wife. Thus he denies himself heaven. The wife on the other hand may easily end up in heaven with a husband provided by the Lord with whom she can achieve unity. This is the deepest striving of a woman, implanted in her by creation, as the Writings reveal.

The woman's deepest striving and longing, Divinely implanted in her soul by creation, is to become an angel. This is because the purpose of all creation is to populate the heavens with human beings, and the more there are, the more perfect heaven grows to eternity. This entire Divine scheme thus depends on the earths in the physical world being nurseries to populate the endless hunger of the heavens to grow in size. This is why the physical universe is expanding at the speed of light, quickly and vastly increasing the rate of creation of more and more earths that can be human nurseries to fill the endless heavens. This entire Divine scheme thus concentrates in one object--the seed.

The seed is the physical covering for the soul. The covering is physical but the soul is spiritual. All things in the physical world are made of things called matter, and so they are called material things. But all things in the spiritual world are made of things called substance, and so they are called substantive things. The covering of the seed is a material thing, but the soul contained within, is a substantive thing. It's the same thing whether we say the soul is a substantive thing or it is a spiritual things.

When you hear "spiritual," be sure to think "substantive" otherwise you're in danger of slipping back into thinking that "spiritual" is less real or concrete than "material" or "physical." If you want to be rational you MUST think that the spiritual or substantive is MORE real than the material or physical. (See this article on substantive dualism).

It's easy to convince yourself of this if you consider the facts about the physical world in comparison to the facts about the spiritual world, as reported directly by an honest and careful eye witness, namely the reputed scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771). His precise reports clearly show the awesome raw power of our mind in the spiritual world after it is cut off from the physical body. Swedenborg was uniquely given the opportunity by the Lord to be conscious in the spiritual world while he was still connected to his physical body. For 27 years he wrote daily for many hours, writing down faithfully every little detail he could observe in the spiritual world. What an amazing boon to society!! To all humanity from now to the endless future.

And you can read it all in English right now, online, if you wanted to! Just click here and read on the screen. You can even search of particular topics he addressed in any of his many books.

But to get back to our topic of women's role in the universe: they are entrusted with the seed, whose significance I just described. The entire Divine plan is concentrated in the soul of a woman as this love of one of the sex. All her interests, and all her happinesses, will be below this one for actualizing her role as the motherly agency for bringing this seed to develop within her body, then giving birth to it as an infant, then nursing the infant and raising it to become another potential angel for the endless heavens.

This love of one of the sex that women are born with is what drives their striving and longing to attain marital unity with her husband. It is very very important to note that this love of the conjugial is in her soul from the beginning, and from there it goes out or down into the mind, through the various levels of the mind, descending and externalizing more and more until at last it exits into the physical body--first into the chest area where the heart and lungs are, then down into the genital area. And there it acts sexually. It is at this lowest and most external level, which is the LAST in a long sequence, that a woman's love of one of the sex, materializes into what we call "sex."

In our lower sensuous consciousness states before the inversion we men BEGIN our relationship with a woman at this most external level we call "sex."

You can see how unsuitable men and women appear to one another in matters of sex, when they try to respect each other rather than one bulldozing the other. The man is hungry for sex as he is animated and vivified by the love of the sex that comes out of his soul into his mind, its various levels, and finally exits into his genitals (skipping the chest area--I believe). Here now he is ready, armed, and willing to forge ahead to the explosive end. While she is not ready, not prepared, and not willing to go ahead. How unfortunate and wasteful--thinks the unregenerate man who does not recognize a higher authority than his in his own mind. He rules his mental domain and what's in it--he says. And so he is spiritually insane. We are, in this state of mind and belief. And so we conclude that her reluctance is too bad.

This is spiritual insanity. Because the reality is that it is not too bad, it is good. And without it, we go to hell.

But because men are hell bent from the arrogance they refuse to tame, they reject the reluctance of the woman in physical sex, and justify themselves instead. This devilish justification is what creates and upholds pornography and adultery.

Pornography may sound like too strong a word for some people. You can use lighter words if you want. As long you are pinpointing men's sexual interests manifested as an industry or habitual activity. In my generation of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, men's sexual interests supports one of the biggest industries and addictions. In other words, it is WIDESPREAD, actually everywhere: on TV, on TV commercials, on TV news, in TV entertainment, in magazine and book publishing, in materials created for "Adults," in clothes and fashion, on the beach and at the office. Everywhere there is this male interest in satisfying men's own love of the sex. Women are not considered. Men alone count. Women are forced, coerced, enticed, recruited for the business, crude or subtle.

When a man meets a woman, a struggle begins between his love of the sex and her love of one of the sex. To the man it appears that the genders are mismatched in terms of sexual desires. After they marry, the man's sexual interest slows down, dries up, dissolves into his pornographic fantasies. Now he will only feel potent with his wife when he is aroused by pornography. There is a large business that provides pornography for married couples, indicating that married men's need for pornography is widespread. Sexual impotence with married men is so common that when a new anti-impotence drug called Viagra became available a couple of years ago, millions of men rushed to obtain it and having obtained it, proudly lauded its efficacy.

Nevertheless, with or without Viagra, and all the other drugs like it that are coming on to the market, male potency will not resurrect as long as men do not cross the inversion. To cross the inversion means that they begin operating in their thinking from the rational truths revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg. In this case, men will regain sexual potency as soon as they rationally understand that sexual potency is the last step in a long sequence of internal events involving their mind and the spiritual world from where God rules and where the heavens and the hells of our afterlife reside. This is the origin of sexual potency: CONJUGIAL LOVE.

Conjugial love descends from God through the Spiritual Sun in the spiritual world where our mind lives now, and where we will live consciously in the afterlife. Conjugial love descends into the minds of the inhabitants of the Third Heaven, then filters down into the minds of the inhabitants of the Second Heaven, then into the minds of the inhabitants of the First Heaven, then into the mind of a man, and from there into his body down into his penis where he feels it like an erection. You can see that this erection called sexual potency, is the last step of a long series of events. Anywhere along this long chain, the progression of the influx downward can be interrupted, absorbed, eliminated, turned into its opposite.

And this is exactly what happens in the mind of the male man before the inversion. The rational truths that are intended to ultimate into his ejaculation are falsified and made irrational before they reach the body. What descends therefore into his body is not truth that becomes potency, but falsity that becomes impotence. Of course this happens gradually with all sorts of variations and individual histories, including on-off potency, pornography, Viagra-and etc., but ultimately, the end of all potency and the hatred of the idea of sex and the hatred of women.

As men our only escape from this hell circuit is abandoning our love of the sex and adopting a woman's rational idea of sex, which is, the love of one of the sex. In order for us men to accomplish this feat, we must give up pornography. We must give up the enjoyment of pornography in all its forms. And this has to be done gradually, one by one, in a long sequence of acts. Pornography is everywhere, either for business, or in the eyes of the lusting man who sees a woman. Each one of these occasions occur dozens of times a day, visually or mentally. And when one of them occurs, we must act against it.

We will be aware of our enjoyment of pornography or adulterous fantasy. We can be alert to it, vigilant. It can be a private thought or a public joke or some sexual harassment comment or gesture. Or it can be something we read in a novel or the newspapers. In every case there will be an opportunity for us to comment on the event. The event is your act, or thought, or enjoyment. You need to comment on it. You can't just take your enjoyment and go on. If you do that, there is no regeneration, no liberation from the slavery of the love of the sex, no salvation and happiness in the love of one of the sex. A lot is at stake here!!

Some men believe that adultery can be sincere and caring, and doesn't necessarily involve pornography and promiscuity. But this is bogus. Adultery, which means pornography or other sexual activity outside the wife, is opposed and destructive of conjugial love which is based on the love of one of the sex only.

After we acquire the habit of contradicting our pornographic acts and interests, the Lord gives us more and more rational truths from which we can not only oppose pornographic enjoyment, but start holding them in aversion. To the extent that we begin to have a horror of pornographic enjoyment and acts, to that extent CHASTITY can move in and insure sexual potency with our wife.

Chastity is applied in a natural sense to men and women who abstain from overt sexual activity and expression because of moral or religious reasons. Abstaining for medical reasons, or out of fear, or out of other reasons, is not chastity. It is chastity only when we abstain for religious, spiritual, or moral reasons. But his is the natural or cultural definition of chastity. The spiritual definition is different.

According to the Writings, chastity can only exist with married partners. Chastity can exist only in a married partner who abstains form any pornographic enjoyment or act from a spiritual or religious reason in relation to the sanctity of marriage.

As we grow in our regeneration, from first to third ascending step, our rational consciousness also grows from the rational truths that we receive from the Lord through many ways and opportunities given us daily. The most complete of these many ways is from the Writings of Swedenborg, the Lord's Second Advent. At first these truths are natural-rational (BLUE consciousness), then spiritual-rational (BROWN consciousness), and finally celestial-rational (BLACK consciousness). At each level we deepen our understanding of how chastity creates the environment for the development of conjugial love and marital unity.

And so you must take the leap. Witness your pornographic thoughts, acts, and enjoyments, even readinesses. Comment on them to yourself, like you are a rational angel. One easy way to do this, in my opinion, is to imagine that your wife is present in your mind, seeing what you're looking at, aware of what you're thinking, feeling what you're enjoying. If you care about her, this thought of her presence with you and aware, will instantly kill the pornographic enjoyment and put an end to the pornographic act.

To the extent that you engage in this practice daily, sincerely, and effectively, to that extent you're learning to be chaste. This is the secret of potency. Every husband who is in a chaste state of mind is extremely potent, a fact that can be verified by anyone from the rational truths in the Writings as well as from empirical research, and personal experience.

According to the Writings, women do not have states of sexual "excitement" similar to what we men have. Instead they have states of "preparedness" for receiving the husband within her. Note this does not mean women don't have an orgasm or have less pleasure than men or are interested in having pleasure less than men, etc. It does not mean these things at all. It means to characterize the difference between men and women in their innate sexuality. Women must have the state of preparedness in order to voluntarily receive the husband, his seed or intellectual wisdom. This state of preparedness is destroyed by acts of rejection, as described above. So be very very careful not to destroy the sexual preparedness state your wife must have in order to experience and desire conjoining sex as opposed to duty-bound sex. And since acts of rejection are going to take place, be very very sure to make up for each transgression you commit. Remember: for a man rejection often means being spurned on sexually and coming on stronger. But for a woman it’s the opposite. An act of rejection, no matter how small you think it is, inhibits her state of preparedness for receiving the husband within her and thus conjoining her mind with his.

Men hate having to make up in a way that women need and desire. They rather be disconnected from their wife than make themselves properly make up for an act of rejection they perpetrated on their wife. It's not enough to bark at her "I'm sorry, honey." For then the question is left unanswered: Sorry for what? It's not enough to specify what you did that's bad, but you also need to find yourself guilty several times in her eyes, and soothe the pain and suffering you caused her by making reparations. You need to give her the feeling that you're going out of your way to make reparations. Whatever that is for your honey, do it, friend.

In my generation and society it is common for both men and women to have pre-marital sex. This is true. Women and men don't have the same reason however. Men have pre-marital sex because they are raised with the idea that it's all right to indulge their love of the sex. Women have a desire for marital unity with one husband. You can see their practical problem. Without society supporting women with suitable husbands, there may not be another way for women whose dates insist on sex. This is a matter of individual choice, circumstance, and opportunity. Even with societal support, it may be unsuitable to women or biased against them. Women don't want to be slaves in a marriage to an arrogant husband who demands his rights, prerogatives, and perks as a man. Often that the only kind of husband society arranges for women. So I can see why women feel they have to manage their life and their opportunities for the future.

Pre-marital sex is typically something men insist on. They are driven selfishly by the desire to satisfy their love of the sex. Men are typically not interested in safeguarding women's innocence, chastity, or reputation and well being. They are motivated to satisfy their sexual desire, and in their mind, this takes precedence. They see this precedence as legitimate. But it is not. It is abominable. It will destroy the husband's capacity to be chaste, and thus his ability to enjoy conjugial love and heavenly life.

Women have a greater interest in sex than men, though this is not generally known, but it is revealed in the Writings. Swedenborg describes an experiment he witnessed in the spiritual world. The experiment was performed for Swedenborg's benefit through higher angels who were in communication with lower angels. The husbands in the lower heaven were discussing things with Swedenborg who was visiting their society for the purpose of learning about sex and conjugial love. The husbands were saying that their wives are mostly not into sex like the husbands were, but that they were passive recipients of their husband's sexual ardor and passion. A this point the higher angels removed the "sphere" of their wives that always surrounds them, that is, the conjugial love sphere emanating from each wife which she receives from influx from the Lord.

First, Swedenborg noticed that the husbands themselves do not possess this sphere, but receive it from their wife, who receives it from the Lord. Second, he noticed that the men began to talk strangely and uncharacteristically about women and sex, saying, What is a wife? What is sex? It was determined that the men now had absolutely zero interest in women and in sex. Soon they started feeling miserable and their heaven was coming apart. So they prayed to the Lord and the sphere of their wives was returned to them, and instantly, they recognized the change and greatly wondering at their former state. This and other experiments witnessed by Swedenborg prove that husbands do not have a sexual life on their own, or from their own, but only from women.

This then answers the puzzle about women and sex. There remains one more thing to explain: Why do men believe they have sexual desires on their own apart from women? Why don't women let them know they are the ones who infuse sex into the men? Why do women often act like it is the men who have the desire for sex and they do not? The answers were revealed to Swedenborg by the wives to whom he has given permission to discuss these issues.

I will summarize the answers they gave using the language and ideas developed in this article. Before the inversion, and in the first ascending state thereafter (BLUE consciousness--Surrender vs. Prerogatives), husbands are still operating from their love of the sex even as they try to become chaste from religious motives. During these states the inner wisdom given to women by the Lord is such that they can perceive clearly that the their husband is operating from the love of the sex rather than from the chaste love of one of the sex, as they are operating. From this they know that they ought to hide their sexual interest and feign disinterest, or else their husbands will turn instantly cold. This may surprise you, as it has me.

In the pre-regenerate state, a husband loses his potency when a wife initiates or asks for sex. He retains his potency when the wife acts reluctant, then gives in. In the work titled Conjugial Love, Swedenborg treats of this subject and as I continue my research in theistic science, more light might be given by the Lord.

`Managing Your Temptations in Marriage (Matrix 4)`
`DEGREE OF CONSCIOUSNESS`	`HUSBAND'S TEMPTATIONS`	`VERTICAL COMMUNITY: CONNECTION WITH THE HELLS`
`I` `INFANCY` `WHITE` `CELESTIAL` `SENSUOUS`	`REJECTION of the wife`	` hating innocence, infants, and marriage hating God and holy things like the Word or the Church cussing and raging etc. etc.`
`II` `CHILDHOOD` `YELLOW` `SPIRITUAL` `SENSUOUS`	`HURTFULNESS to the wife`	` addicted to exercising dominion and control over all loving ego, honors, and self-aggrandizement loving to take advantage of others etc. etc.`
`III` `ADOLESCENCE` `GREEN` `NATURAL` `SENSUOUS`	`ABUSE of the wife`	` enjoying cruelty, injustice, perversion enjoying violence and revenge etc. etc.`**
`INVERSION`
`IV` `YOUNG ADULTHOOD` `BLUE` `NATURAL` `RATIONAL`	`Demanding PREROGATIVES from the wife`	` loving hypocrisy and using religion for an advantage wanting to box women in, to enslave them etc. etc.`**
`V` `ADULTHOOD` `BROWN` `SPIRITUAL` `RATIONAL`	`Creating INSECURITIES in the wife`	` allowing heresies that favor their position believing in the basic superiority of men being in conjugial cold in the internal mind etc. etc.`
`VI` `OLD AGE` `BLACK` `CELESTIAL` `RATIONAL`	`Disconnecting himself from his wife`	` bent on self-destruction by destroying others who are close turning a blind eye to own shortcomings and weaknesses cowardliness and lack of integrity hating happiness ** etc. etc..`

Whenever you think about your wife, which should be several times every hour, legitimize her position and status as your wife, your queen, your favorite person, your best friend, your lover and bride. Every time you think of her negatively or in opposition, immediately chide yourself and be regretful. Then go from there again.

This is not easy. It is most difficult at the beginning and for awhile thereafter, maybe up to half way for your trek, friend, whatever it is. It took me till three quarters of the way to feel that it is most difficult, but then it breaks off, the resistance I mean, and Vlam, you're out of the woods, off the iceberg, sliding down on easy river. Believe it. We men seem to need endless reminders to be good. Our intellect conspires against our very self. The end purpose of all this resistance and hardheadedness is hell, of course. We men are born hell bent!

You must overcome your resistance, defeating it on rational grounds. Ask yourself, Why am I so resistant to this idea of the Doctrine of the Wife? Is not the intended end the end I desire? My strong opposition is not from heaven but from hell. My strong opposition is not rational but irrational. My strong opposition leads me to an end I do not desire, instead I fear it most deeply. The end that my opposition leads me to is the end I must avoid at all cost. I will pray to the Lord to give me the courage to be good and I will make myself be good, force myself to put my wife ahead of myself. I will lay aside all my opposition and I will listen to her EVEN IF I don't agree with her position, with her view of it, with her solution, with her definition of the situation, with nothing. I agree with nothing of her, and YET I WILL OBEY her view, her opinion, her judgment, her affection, her definition, her prediction, not mine. Amen, thank you Lord of all.

You surely see what I mean. You are your own person, friend, and you must find the way that suits you and works for you. I'm belaboring the point to give you plenty time to bring yourself under control. What's at stake is awesome.

To carry out this plan of salvation we men need to adopt the positive bias principle towards our wife. This means that our attitude towards our wife's word should be similar to our attitude toward the letter of the Word. When we read something in the Writings, for instance, and we come across something amazing like a discussion on the spirits from our moon or Mars and Venus, we don't react by saying, No ways, this must be a mistake. We say, this is puzzling, what does it mean. How is it true? How can I confirm it? This attitude comes from having the positive bias towards the Word. We operate from the principle that the Word is Divine Truth itself and contains infinite things. A similar attitude is appropriate to one's wife's word.

This may seem to many like an exaggeration, and yet it is not. It is the doctrine of the wife. Remember how nonplussed Abraham was when Sarah told him to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael, his first and only son he had with her. Sarah's view on this just didn't add up. His own son. His only son. After Sarah herself thinking up and setting up this arrangement, giving her maidservant Hagar to her husband Abraham that he may have a son by Hagar. Sarah had reached her old age and it made no sense waiting longer for them to have a son. And now she wants him to get rid of mother and son. Without a son his entire life meant nothing, his entire religion, nothing. Now he had his son. And Sarah wanted him out of the household. And Scripture records that Sarah's demand was very "grievous" to his heart. Then Abraham's God appeared to him and said to him, Just listen to your wife ("hearken unto Sarah"), Yeah, that's our job as Abraham, each of us husbands. Quit your writhing in agony like a snake on a hot plate and just listen to your Sarah. Even her word is very grievous in your heart.

Do you hear this? Even if her opinion or request or demand or expectation is very grievous to your mind and heart. Even if it doesn't make sense. Did it make sense to Abraham what Sarah asked for?

Yes, but…and you can spin this endlessly. Sarah knew that she's going to have a son herself and this son must inherit Abraham's blessing of creating a great nation into the future, a people of God. So since Sarah knew this, Abraham was safe in listening to her. Just a special situation. But in my case, my wife STOP

You're not allowed to permit yourself to formulate in your mind negative things or doubts about your wife. The positive bias disallows that, so you must disallow it. After all we do want to be as rational as possible about this. This will insure our success.

Here is a chart describing the loops you put yourself through in order to train yourself to be a celestial husband.

The above diagram is the husband's map to heaven. The celestial road. If you follow this positive bias approach in your thinking about your wife you are giving her the power to defeat your enemies and companions from hell. This is because God gives her perception and moral wisdom for your sake, not just her own. In fact she has nothing if she doesn't have you. You are her all. The Lord gives her perception while you're getting blindness. It stands to reason you let her guide for she is your seeing eye. We're talking about rational seeing, not sensuous consciousness. Rational consciousness is something the Lord gives to the wife. In the Word this is called Divine Truth and is represented by Sarah. Abraham on the other hand represents Divine Good. So you the husband must be guided by the wife in the same way that Divine Good MUST BE GUIDED by Divine Truth.

The Writings explain that good without truth is without effect, even without real existence. Thus, Abraham without Sarah cannot accomplish anything, fails at his crucial point. Thus, the husband cannot regenerate by putting his view, his opinion, his rationality, his wisdom ahead of that of his wife.

Of course all this is said about a true wife, a genuine wife who desires conjunction and unity with you more than anything else. Only the genuine wife receives the perception and the role specified in the Doctrine of the Wife.

You must give your wife the weapons by which to defeat you! If you win, you lose; if she wins, you win. This is how it's been arranged by the Divine Therapist. It's a complimentary relationship. In the beginning, when you get together as a couple, she is your heart, and you are her lungs. This is an outward conjunction, not yet inward. Then there is an inversion as the two of you begin your inner conjunction. Now you are her heart and she is your lungs. The heart corresponds to affections (good or love), while the lungs correspond to cognitions (truth or wisdom).

In the first phase of external union, she becomes the love of your intellectual wisdom, while you don't have to do anything except honor her and refrain from abusing her. In the second phase of internal union, you become the love of her moral wisdom, while she conjoins her life to you more and more. Now you're united from within, and thence from without. You now form a conjugial couple.