Two days later the angel spoke to me again and said: 'Let us complete the cycle of the ages. All we have left is the last age, which is called after iron. The people of this age live in the north, deep inside on the west side. All of these are from the early inhabitants of Asia who had the old Word, and their worship was based on this; that is to say, before the Lord's coming into the world. This is clear from the writings of the ancients, in which this period is so named. The same periods are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, which had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron as well as clay (Dan. 2:32, 33).'

[2] The angel told me this on the journey, which was shortened and hurried on by changes produced in our mental state to match the characters of the peoples we passed through. For spaces and distances in the spiritual world are appearances dictated by mental states. When we lifted up our eyes, we found ourselves in a wood composed of beeches and two kinds of oak; and on looking around we saw bears to our left and leopards to our right. When I showed surprise at this, the angel said, 'They are not bears or leopards, but people who act as guards for those who live in the north. They sniff out the spheres given off by the way passers-by live, and fly at all who are spiritual, because those who live here are natural. Those who only read the Word without drawing any teaching from it, look at a distance like bears, and those who confirm false ideas from the Word look like leopards.' However on seeing us these creatures turned their backs and we passed through.

[3] After passing through the wood there were thickets, and then grassy plains, divided into plots with box-wood hedges. Then the ground sloped down into a valley, in which there was one city after another. We passed some by and went into a large one. Its streets were irregular, and so were its houses. The houses were built of bricks, with half-timbering and plastered walls. In the squares there were shrines built of ashlar limestone; they had an underground basement and a storey above. We went down into one of these by three steps, and saw the walls around us covered with idols of various shapes, and a crowd on their knees adoring them. In the centre was a choir, from which the head of the city's tutelary deity stood out. As we went out, the angel told me that among the ancients who lived in the silver age, as mentioned above, there were images to represent spiritual truths and moral virtues. When the knowledge of correspondences was lost from memory and became extinct, these images first became objects of worship, and after were adored as divinities. This was the origin of idolatry.

[4] When we had left the shrine, we examined the people and their dress. Their complexion was greyish, like steel, and they were dressed like clowns, with tabs around their hips hanging from a tunic which tightly fitted the chest. On their heads they had sailors' cocked hats. 'That's enough of this,' said the angel. 'Let us learn about marriage among the peoples of this age.'

We entered the house of one of the leading citizens, who wore a top hat on his head. He made us welcome and said, 'Come in and let us have a chat.' We went into the entrance-hall and sat down there. I asked him about marriage in this city and region. 'We,' he said, 'do not live with one wife. Some have two or three, some more. This is because we take pleasure in variety, obedience and being treated with the respect due to royalty. When we have several wives, we get this from them. With only one we should not have the pleasure of variety, but be bored with sameness; we should not be flattered by their obedience, but annoyed by their equal status. Nor should we have the satisfaction of controlling them and so being respected, but we should be bothered with quarrels about who was superior. And what about the woman? Surely she is by birth subject to her husband's will, intended to be a servant, not a ruler. Every husband here is treated in his house like a king. Since this is what we love, it is what makes our lives blessed.'

[5] 'But,' I asked, 'where then is conjugial love, which makes one soul out of two, linking minds and making people blessed? This love is indivisible; divided it turns into an ardour which cools off and disappears.' 'I don't understand what you mean,' he replied to this. 'What else makes a man blessed, if not the rivalry between wives to give the greatest respect to her husband?' On saying this the man went into the women's quarters and opened a double door. An odour of lewdness came out, stinking like filth; this was the result of polygamous love, which is marital and at the same time scortatory. So I got up and closed the doors.

[6] Then I said, ' How can you keep living on this land, lacking as you do any truly conjugial love and adoring idols?' 'As for marital love,' he replied, 'we are so jealous of our wives that we do not allow anyone to come further into our homes than the entrance-hall. Where there is jealousy, there is also love. As for the idols, we do not adore them; but we cannot think about the God of the universe except by having some object before our eyes. For we cannot lift our thoughts above the sense-impressions of the body, or in thinking about God rise above His visual aspect.'

Then I asked further: 'Are your idols not of different forms? How can they suggest the vision of one God?' 'This,' he replied, 'is one of our mysteries; each form contains some aspect of the worship of God.' 'You,' I said, 'are entirely sunk in the bodily senses. You have no love of God, nor love for a wife with any spirituality in it. These loves together make a person what he is, and can turn him from a creature of the senses into a heavenly one.'

[7] When I said this, there was something like a flash of lightning seen through the doorway. 'What is that?' I asked. 'Such a flash of lightning,' he said, 'is for us a sign announcing the arrival of the Ancient Man of the East, who teaches us about God, as being one, alone and omnipotent, who is the First and the Last. He also warns us not to worship idols, but only to look on them as images representing the powers which proceed from the one God; these taken together make up His worship. This ancient man is our angel, whom we revere and listen to. He comes to us and sets us straight, when we slip into a dim way of worshipping God by indulging in fancies about images.'

[8] When we had heard this speech, we left the house and the city, and as we journeyed we drew conclusions from what we had seen in the heavens about the ambit and development of conjugial love. Its ambit ran from the east to the south and from this to the west, and hence to the north. Its development was marked by a decrease as it moved around; in the east it was celestial, in the south spiritual, in the west natural, and in the north sensual. It also decreased in step with the love and worship of God. Our conclusion from this was that this love was in the first age like gold, in the second like silver, in the third like bronze, in the fourth like iron, and it finally ceased altogether. Then my angel guide and companion said: 'Yet I am still full of hope that this love will be revived by the God of heaven, who is the Lord, since it is capable of being revived.'