395. I shall prove in the next section [403-405] that every person is by creation and therefore from birth endowed with these three loves; and when they are properly ordered they increase a person's perfection, and when they are not, they corrupt him. For the moment it may be enough to remark that these three loves are properly ordered when the love of heaven makes up the head, the love of the world the chest and belly, and self-love the feet and soles of the feet. The human mind is divided into three levels, as I have said several times before; on the highest level a person looks towards God, on the second or middle level the world, and on the third or lowest level himself. Since the mind is like this, it can be raised or it can lift itself up, by looking to God and heaven; it can be spread or spread itself laterally in every direction, by looking to the world and nature in it; and it can sink or let itself down, by looking to the ground and to hell. In these respects the body's sight copies the mind's, for it too can look up, look around and look down.
[2] The human mind is like a house with three floors communicating by staircases. On the top floor live angels from heaven, on the middle floor people in the world, and on the bottom floor genii*. If a person has those three loves properly ordered, he can at will go up or down. When he climbs to the top floor he is with the angels and like one himself; when he comes down from there to the middle floor, there he is with people, like a man-angel; and when he comes even further down, he is with genii like a person in the world, and he instructs, reproves and tames them.
[3] When a person has those three loves properly ordered, they are also arranged among themselves so that the highest love, which is that of heaven, is inside the second, the love of the world, and by means of this in the third or lowest, which is self-love. The love which is inside also has complete control over the one which is outside. So if the love of heaven is inside the love of the world, and is by this means in self-love, then the person is guided by the God of heaven in the services he performs at each level. The three loves function like the will, the understanding and action. The will acts upon the understanding, and there seeks out means for itself which allow it to perform the action. But there will be more to be seen on this subject in the next section, where it will be proved that these three loves if properly ordered increase a person's perfection, and if not properly ordered, corrupt him and turn him upside down.
* Genii is a name used by Swedenborg for a class of evil spirits.
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