218 HEAVEN and HELL §380
and tranquilized for the sake of peace. The clash and struggle of their
inner natures comes out after their death. They usually get together and
then battle each other like enemies and tear each other apart. They are in
fact acting in accord with the state of their own deeper natures. I have
occasionally been allowed to see how they fi ght and tear one another;
some instances are full of spite and savagery. Everyone’s deeper levels are
allowed a certain freedom in the other life, being no longer constrained
by outward considerations, for their worldly purposes. Then people are
outwardly what they are inwardly.381 There is a kind of image of marriage love in some people, but it is
not marriage love unless they are focused on a love of the good and the
true. It is a love that looks like marriage love for a number of reasons—
we want to be taken care of at home, to feel secure, to be at peace or at
leisure, to be taken care of when we are ill or elderly, or [to work together]
for the sake of beloved children. In some cases it arises from a fear of the
spouse, because of what people will think, or for evil ends; and for some
it is lust that causes it.
Marriage love also differs between spouses. It may be more or less in
one, little or none in the other; and since it may differ, it may be heaven
for one and hell for the other.382 a Genuine marriage love is found in the inmost heaven because the
angels there are absorbed in the marriage of the good and the true and
are in innocence as well. Angels of lower heavens are in marriage love
too, but only to the extent that they are in innocence; because seen in
its own right, marriage love is a state of innocence. So between partners
who are in marriage love there are heavenly pleasures almost like games
of innocence to their minds, like those of babies, because there is noth-
ing that does not delight them. Heaven flows into the smallest details of
their lives with its joy. This is why marriage love is portrayed in heaven
by the loveliest things of all. I have seen it represented by an indescrib-
ably lovely young woman enveloped by a white cloud. I was told that all
the beauty of angels in heaven comes from marriage love. The affections
and thoughts that flow from it are represented by gleaming auras, like
those of fiery gems or rubies, all this accompanied by feelings of delight
that move the deeper levels of the mind.
In a word, heaven portrays itself in marriage love because heaven for
angels is the union of the good and the true, and it is this union that con-
stitutes marriage love.382b Marriages in the heavens differ from marriages on earth in that
earthly marriages are also for the purpose of having children, while this is