Once, when looking into the world of spirits, I saw in a meadow, men clothed in garments like those of men in the world, and from this I knew that they were lately come from the world. I went to them and stood at their side, that I might listen to what they were saying among themselves. They were speaking about heaven, and one of them who knew something about heaven said, "There are wonderful things there, such as can never be believed by any one unless he has seen them. Thus there are paradisal gardens, magnificent palaces architecturally constructed because by the very art itself and resplendent as from gold; and in front of them, silver columns upon which are heavenly forms of precious stones; also houses of jasper and sapphire, in front of which are stately porticos through which the angels enter; and inside the houses, decorations which neither art nor word can describe. [2] As to the angels themselves, they are of both sexes, young men and husbands, and virgins and wives. The virgins are so beautiful that in the world there is nothing resembling such beauty. Yet the wives are still more beautiful, being in appearance as the genuine effigies of heavenly love; and their husbands, all of whom are mature young men,* as the effigies of heavenly wisdom. What is more, they do not know what love of the sex can be, if not conjugial love; and, what you will wonder at, the husbands have perpetual ability for the enjoyment of its delights." When they heard that there is no love of the sex there other than conjugial love, and that they have perpetual ability for the enjoyment of its delights, the novitiate spirits laughed among themselves and said, "What you say is incredible; such ability is not possible. Perhaps you are telling fables." [3] And then, all unexpectedly, an angel from heaven stood in their midst and said: "Hear me, I pray. I am an angel of heaven and have lived with my wife now for a thousand years. Throughout all those years I have been in the same flower of age in which you see me now, and this from living in conjugial love with my wife; and I can assure you that I have had and do now have that perpetual ability. But as I perceive that you think this is not possible, I will speak to you of the matter from reasons according with the light of your own understanding. You know nothing of the primeval state of mankind which is called by you their state of integrity. In that state all the interiors of their minds were open to the Lord, and hence were in the marriage of love and wisdom or good and truth; and because the good of love and the truth of wisdom love each other perpetually, and perpetually will to be united, therefore, when the interiors of the mind are open, this spiritual conjugial love with its perpetual striving, flows down freely and gives that ability. [4] Man's soul, being in the marriage of good and truth, is not only in a perpetual striving for that unition but is also in a perpetual striving for fructification and the production of a likeness of itself. And when, by virtue of that marriage, man's interiors are laid open all the way from the soul--and that they may stand forth, interiors are continually looking to the effect in ultimates as their end--then, that perpetual striving for fructification and the production of a likeness of itself which belongs to the soul becomes the body's. And because with two consorts the ultimate operation of the soul in the body is into the ultimates of love there--ultimates which are dependent on the state of the soul--it is evident whence it is that they have this perpetual ability. [5] That there is also perpetual fructification, is because the universal sphere of generating and propagating the celestial things pertaining to love, and the spiritual things pertaining to wisdom, and thence the natural things pertaining to offspring, proceeds from the Lord and fills the whole of heaven and the whole of the world. This celestial sphere fills the souls of all men and descends through their minds into their bodies to the very ultimates thereof and gives the power of generating. This power, however, can be given only to those with whom there is open passage from the soul through the higher and lower regions of the mind into the body even to its ultimates; and this is the case with those who suffer themselves to be led back by the Lord to the primeval state of creation. I can assure you, that now for a thousand years, neither ability nor strength nor vigor has ever been lacking with me, and that I know nothing whatever of any diminution of powers, these powers being continually renewed by the continual influx of that universal sphere of which I have spoken. Moreover, they then gladden the animus, and do not sadden it as is the case with those who suffer the loss of them. [6] Furthermore, love truly Conjugial is like the warmth of spring from the influx of which, all things aspire to germination and fructification. In our heaven there is no other warmth, and therefore, with married partners there, spring is in its perpetual endeavor, it being this perpetual endeavor from which that vigor comes. With us in the heavens, however, fructifications are different than with men on earth. With us they are spiritual, being fructifications of love and wisdom or of good and truth. From the wisdom of her husband, the wife receives into herself the love thereof, and from that love in his wife, the husband receives into himself wisdom. Indeed, the wife is actually formed into the love of her husband's wisdom, this being effected by her receptions of the propagations of his soul, with the delight arising from her will to be the love of her husband's wisdom. Thus from a virgin she becomes a wife and a similitude. Thence also, with the wife, love with its inmost friendship, and with the husband, wisdom with its felicity, perennially increase and this to eternity. Such is the state of the angels of heaven." [7] When the angel had thus spoken, he looked upon those who were newly come from the world and said to them: "You know that when you were in the vigor of love, you loved your partners, and that after the delight you turned yourselves away; but you do not know that in heaven we do not love our partners from that vigor, but have the vigor from our love, and that with us it is perpetual because we love our partners perpetually. If, therefore, you can reverse your state, you can comprehend this. Who that loves his partner perpetually does not love her with his whole mind and his whole body? Love turns all things of the mind and all things of the body to that which it loves; and because this is done reciprocally, it so conjoins them that they become as one." [8] He said further: "I shall not speak to you of the conjugial love implanted from creation in the male and female, and of their inclination to legitimate conjunction; or of the faculty of prolification in the male which makes one with the faculty of multiplying wisdom from the love of truth. So far as a man loves wisdom from the love of wisdom, that is, loves truth from good, so far he is in love truly conjugial and in its attendant vigor." * The Latin adolescentes juvenes means adult men and women in the flower of their age.