424. (19) Love defiled in and by the intellect becomes natural, sensual and carnal. Natural love separated from spiritual love is opposed to spiritual love. The reason is that natural love is a love of self and love of the world, while spiritual love is a love of the Lord and love of the neighbor; and a love of self and the world looks downward and outward, while a love of the Lord looks upward and inward. Consequently when natural love has been separated from spiritual love, it cannot be elevated from a person's native character, but remains immersed in it, and to the extent that it loves it, mired in it. If the intellect then ascends and sees by the light of heaven such matters as are those of wisdom, the natural love draws it back and unites it with itself in its native character, and there either rejects those matters belonging to wisdom, or falsifies them, or places them round about it in order to give voice to them for the sake of its reputation. [2] As natural love can by degrees ascend and become spiritual and celestial, so it can also by degrees descend and become sensual and carnal. And it does descend to the extent that it loves dominion, not from any love of useful service, but solely from a love of self. This is the love we call the devil. People who are caught up in this love can speak and act in the same way as people who are prompted by spiritual love. But they do so then either from memory, or from an intellect elevated by itself into the light of heaven. Still, however, the things they say and do are comparatively like fruits that appear on the surface beautiful, but which inside are completely rotten. Or they are like almonds that appear from their shells to be without blemish, but which inside are completely eaten away by worms. People in the spiritual world term such words and actions beguilements, which licentious women, called sirens in that world, use to put on the appearance of beauty and to array themselves in seemly garments, but yet who, when the beguilement is dispelled, appear as specters. Such people are also like devils who feign themselves angels of light. For when that carnal love draws its intellect back from its elevated state, which happens when the person is alone, and the person then thinks in accordance with his love, he then thinks in opposition to God on the side of nature, in opposition to heaven on the side of the world, and in opposition to the truths and goods of the church on the side of the falsities and evils of hell-thus in opposition to wisdom. [3] One can see from this the character of people whom we call carnal. For they are not carnal in respect to their intellect, but are carnal in respect to their love. That is to say, they are not carnal in respect to their intellect when they speak in the company of others, but are when they speak to themselves in the spirit. And because they are of such a character in the spirit, therefore after death they become in respect to both, both their love and their intellect, spirits who are called carnal spirits. Those who possessed in the world a supreme love of ruling from a love of self, and had enjoyed at the same time an elevation of the intellect beyond that of others, then appear in body like Egyptian mummies, and in mind gross and foolish. Who knows in the world today that this love is, in itself, of such a character? But still there exists a love of ruling from a love of useful service, not from a love of useful service for the sake of self, but from a love of useful service for the sake of the common good. A person can hardly distinguish the one from the other, yet the difference between them is as that between heaven and hell. (The differences between these two distinct loves of ruling may be seen in the book Heaven and Hell, nos. 551-565.)