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Series: |
Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands: by Leon James Part 3 Go to the other parts: Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 Note: You may want to consult
a
more recent version
of this essay: It's important to keep in mind that the
series of six steps in regeneration is recursive at all levels. In other words, while
you're in your infancy period (WHITE consciousness) you will be stepping through six
phases of the infancy period. The first is the Infancy of Infancy stage (WHITE OF WHITE
consciousness--see this article for a chart that depicts this). The second phase within
the Infancy period is the Childhood phase of the infancy period (YELLOW of WHITE segment).
And the sixth phase of the infancy period (BLACK of WHITE segment) is called the Old Age
of Infancy. Similarly, there is going to be a BLACK OF GREEN segment immediately prior to
the inversion, and immediately after, a WHITE of BLUE segment. And so on. This is what it
means to say that the six steps are recursive at all levels and sub-levels. This means that you need to know what
all six phases are no matter what phase you're in. You can't say, for instance, Well, I'm
in the GREEN period still, so I don't need to know what the BROWN or BLACK degree means.
The fact is that the BLACK degree, which is called the Church of Unity, and is made of the
Doctrine of the Wife, has to be the end goal of any period you're going through. The end
goal is that which must inside every segment that actually leads to that goal. You need a
way of insuring that the Doctrine of the Wife will be the end within every segment of your
regeneration pathway. This insurance is obtained when you learn and adopt the rhetoric of
BLACK consciousness. BLACK consciousness
is the striving from the internal mind to gain control over the disorderly outer mind. We
need to allow influx from our internal mind, which is spiritual and rational, into our
external mind, which is natural and sensuous. Striving for unity with the wife in every
interaction is something in the internal mind. Opposing this striving is something in the
external mind. The internal mind must gain control over the external mind. BLACK consciousness is a method we can use to insure the
success of this necessity. BLACK consciousness
is just another way of saying the Doctrine of the Wife. The chart below, matrix 3, will help you
become familiar with the rhetoric of BLACK consciousness.
This means that you will be able to confirm the Doctrine of the Wife when it is being
challenged by the hoards to which you're still connected. This connectedness to the hells
we all have from inheritance in addition to acquired evils of our own. God has provided
that truths be implanted in our internal rational mind at a time when we don't even think
about it. Our daily experiences and cumulating biography are encapsulated and abstracted
into what we call self-knowledge or conscious awareness of ourselves as husbands. This
self-awareness is a fiction designed to pull us into hell. The reality is that our self-awareness
is an abstraction or fiction based on the kind of reputation we would like to have with
ourselves. This desire is from hell. And it takes us there as surely as a strong
undercurrent drags the unaware swimmer out into the open sea where it is only with
difficulty, if at all, that the tired swimmer can return to shore and safety. This is how
our connectedness to the hells slowly and inexorably draws us into its bosom where the
hoards are awaiting to incorporate one more failed Pinocchio. But do not think that this
is a system run amuck. God is the one who makes all this work in the way it works. And so God provides the orderly way in
which we clean up our personality and our character, provides the motivation to do it, the
power to carry it out, the persistence to continue in the face of temptations, and
provides the rewards and awards of the final outcome, which is paradise and heaven to
eternity in married bliss and unity. God is with us every step of the way and
directs every little detail Himself, Personally, with Love and Grace and infinite wisdom
and power! This He does out of Divine Love which
intensely desires nothing more than to be conjoined to created human beings. In this
conjoining God can give us what He ardently desires to give, namely eternal bliss and
happiness, creativity, wisdom, power, unending striving for uses and success. And all this is called
"heaven." And heaven means to be conjoined to God. And there is only one way to
be in heaven, and that is the married way. A husband and a wife together and united make
one angel. And heaven is inhabited only by angels. A single person cannot inhabit heaven,
as confirmed by Swedenborg in his many travels to heaven. Such is the universe God has
created because such is His Love. God is Love, you've heard that, but people don't
generally know that this Love is Conjugial Love, which means married love between husband
and wife. This is what makes the planets go around. This is what makes heaven be a real
thing. Amen! The Doctrine of the Wife is a collection
of truths taken from the Writings of Swedenborg. These are the truths you use to achieve
success in BLACK conscious, which simply refers to the interior celestial rational mind
into which the celestial angels act and with which they communicate. Interior rational
truths come in three degrees of depth (or height): natural rational, spiritual rational,
and celestial rational. These correspond to the three ascending steps (BLUE, BROWN, BLACK)
as discussed throughout this article. I should perhaps briefly address an
issue that might be a hindrance to some readers. Why am I focusing everything about
regeneration on BLACK consciousness, or the Doctrine of the Wife, which is an idea of my
own invention--is this not giving it too much emphasis for subjective or personal reasons?
I would answer that the Doctrine of the Wife is actually the inner sense of
"conjugial love." This perspective serves uses in the regeneration of men or
husbands. The Doctrine of the Wife is a motivational power tool for husbands, with which
they can extract themselves as-of-self from the morass in which they swim and drown before
they enter the third ascending step, and throughout that period until separation from the
physical body. This motivational tool is needed, there
is no doubt about that. It is not rational to think that we can be regenerated when we
stop ourselves from being taken by the Lord on the rocky road of celestial temptations. It
takes an inner power tool to face and overcome celestial temptations. The tool based on
the literal of the Writings called above the Doctrine of the Church (BROWN consciousness)
is not sufficient because it leads to heresies that must be overcome through interior
celestial rational truths (BLACK consciousness). In order to understand this more clearly
consider the next chart (matrix 3) below.
The chart above (matrix 3) helps you
investigate your own hidden views about women and marriage. It lines up the three
ascending steps parallel to each other on several "trigger" issues in the
"spiritual psycho-politics" of gender. The husband cannot regenerate without
building up inner rational truths about marriage. There are three such inner degrees of
truth. Each ascending step brings you the capacity to understand the next inner degree of
truth about marriage. These inner truths are
seeds implanted by the Lord in your mind through the presence of the angels: the natural
angels in your first ascending step (BLUE), the spiritual angels in your second ascending
step (BROWN), and the celestial angels in your third ascending step (BLACK). Your job in reading the chart is to
confirm each part of it in relation to yourself, your marriage, your role and behavior as
husband.. This is why this section is called
Learning the Rhetoric of BLACK consciousness. The purpose of learning the rhetoric of
the Doctrine of the Wife is to give you the intellectual tool you need to overcome your
celestial temptations. We all need these tools and we all can benefit from each other's
discoveries and illustrations from the Lord as we study the Writings. Take the first issue in the chart:
Each ascending step of the husband has
its own rational view of religion in relation to women. In the first step which follows
immediately after the inversion, our rational consciousness is grounded in traditional
gender views that are justified by selective attention to particular literal statements in
Sacred Scripture. You can see that there is an element of rationality here because one's
perspective on women is validated by sentences that appear in the Word of God. Obviously
this recognizes a higher authority than self. For instance adultery is forbidden in the
literal of the Word and so a husband's desire for adultery must be denied by him, that is,
put aside and made of no effect. It is not possible for him to justify adultery without
denying the Word and therefore God. But this rational attitude (BLUE
consciousness) in the husband's mind is a mixed rational, not a pure rational. A pure
rational is from spiritual origin and is not dependent at all on any natural
justification. The spiritual rational must be from revelation, from God through the Word
or through the angels. The pure rational is from the spiritual world only, hence it is
called "spiritual-rational" (BROWN consciousness). The
"natural-rational" (BLUE consciousness) is not entirely from the spiritual
world, so it is mixed. BLUE consciousness, or the first ascending step after crossing the
inversion, gives us some growth in the rational mind (internal mind), but not the pure
rational. And yet it is the pure rational we need for regeneration. Hence another
ascending step will be required. The chart gives the title "The
Church of Submission" to this "natural-rational" state of mind (BLUE
consciousness). It is based on fundamentalism in marriage, or the idea that husbands can
justify putting themselves ahead of wives on the basis of the literal statements of Sacred
Scripture. The possibility that this attitude is from hell does not enter our
consciousness in this state. When contrary passages in the Word are brought to our
attention, we overlook them, pass them over, or attribute them to the incomplete mind of
the prophet or revelator who wrote those sentences in the name of God, or possibly to the
translator, or the changes that were introduced by error over the generations of
reproducing those sentences. Whatever the explanation, we remain in the persuasion of the
Church of Submissiveness of Women. This is a Church of Satan. Its use in our regeneration
is to allow the Lord to bring natural-rational temptations to our awareness. This is done
with the help of the natural angels who are with us in this state. Let's view again the list of BLUE
temptations that go with this period (see matrix 2 above):
These are the temptations of the Church
of Submission of Wives. The theme conflict is Surrender vs. Prerogatives. That is, as
husbands in the mental state we try to hold on to male privileges and perks we want our
wives to treat us with. And further, we are willing to justify this desire by using Sacred
Scripture to say to our wife: Now, you do this as I tell you because I am your husband
appointed by God. Or, Now don't disobey me or you're sinning against God. Etc. But all this is a shambles, a Wizard of
Oz trick behind which there is no power, no future--just disappointment and hell. We must
face this fundamentalism and see that submission of the wife is not rational, is not what
God wants, is not Divine Truth. It is only an appearance of rational called
natural-rational, and is not really truly spiritual-rational. When we thus face these natural-rational
temptations, see them in ourselves as irrational and destructive and anti-God, then we
receive the power to overcome these temptations by means of higher rational truths called
spiritual-rational. And as we use these higher truths, we end our prison within BLUE
consciousness and step into BROWN consciousness territory. From here, for the very first
time, we can experience the spiritual-rational. The chart segment again: Take the first
issue in the chart:
This spiritual-rational consciousness
(second ascending step) views religion in relation to women as being needed as an integral
part of the Church. It is named here the Church of Balance because in this state of mind
we view women as being assigned by God the task of balancing the state and activities of
the men as they go about their task of building the Church and society. This is the theme
of Specialization vs. Insecurities, as discussed in the chart above (matrix2). Women are
seen by men as having a purpose in man's life, a purpose assigned to women by God. Eve is
presented to Adam as an help mate taken from his rib so that he may not feel alone with
the animals. And so BROWN consciousness sees women as
fulfilling God's purpose of balancing men's lives, taming man, softening the harshness of
men. All this is true of course, as it is written in the Writings. The problem is that
these facts from the Writings are taken as Doctrine to justify the idea of specialization.
This perspective ignores other passages that spring to the focus in BLACK consciousness,
passages in which women are portrayed as united with the masculine, whose function it is
to conjoin the masculine to herself, to connect the man to herself. Instead, in BROWN
consciousness, women are seen as providing a needed "sphere" for the Church and
for the family. This womanly sphere is exalted and praised, but it is kept underneath men,
or surrounding them from the exterior. In the interior, the men remain separated in their
own sphere. There is no desire to eliminate the masculine sphere in favor of the
feminine--this would actually be seen as sacrilegious. Note that the BROWN ideas are purely
rational because entirely from the Word. The Writings have extensive passages dealing
specifically with the role of women in relation to men and the Church. In this BROWN
consciousness phase we gather and collect and arrange the literal statements of the
Writings that pertain to a particular topic. And the specific collection or list is then
titled "The Doctrine of the Church" in relation to this or that subject. This is
how we establish in our minds the idea of Specialization and the Doctrine of Balance. More
on this approach as we discuss the other topics in the chart. But even this purely rational, or
spiritual-rational consciousness, must face new temptations called spiritual-rational
temptations. Here is the list again of BROWN temptations from matrix 2:
The theme conflict for this period is
called Specialization vs. Insecurities. As discussed above, this refers to the
insecurities in the wife engendered by the husband's support for and love of the doctrine
of specialization. The list of temptations above shows clearly how the husband produces
these insecurities by means of his spiritual concepts based on the literal of the Writings
and which he takes for Doctrine of the Church. In order to overcome these temptations
we must abandon our loyalty to the doctrine of specialization that leads to the wife's
insecurities. We must care and be affected by these insecurities. We must be motivated to
heal her from these insecurities. We must not be content with the idea that these
insecurities are something the wife must learn to live with since they are caused by her
rejection of the Word. These ideas separate us from her, prevent our unity. And so we must once again take the next
ascending step, switch over to the celestial angels who can now instruct us in
celestial-rational truths. These are the ultimate weapons for the conquest of the last
frontier. These are the rational truths that make up BLACK consciousness.
As the chart shows, the third ascending
step is called the Doctrine of the Wife and its conflict theme is Unity vs. Disconnection.
The unity referred to is the unity that is the result of complementarity--husband and wife
individually are incomplete human beings, but together they complete each other and form
one full or completed human being called "an angel." This character of the
celestial-rational truths collected under the title Doctrine of the Wife can be seen more
clearly as the other topics of the chart are discussed next.
Take the second issue in the chart:
You can see the three steps parallel to
each other. The first state of rational consciousness is natural and perceives the wife in
a position of subordination to the husband. In
the second step, we see ourselves as men acting a "leadership" role with regards
to spiritual matters and truths. But in the last step we see ourselves as a portion of our
wife and we see her as in the upper portion. You might experience a rebellion to the
idea that the wife is in an upper portion and the husband in a lower portion with respect
to wisdom and spiritual things. You might wonder whether this is not going overboard and
represents just the interpretation Leon James puts on things, his spiritual spin on the
subject, as it were. But all these protestations are nothing but a throw back on earlier
modes of consciousness, for example this: Well, why not make the husband's and the wife's
portions of equal value. Why do you have to make her portion higher, and his, lower. This preoccupation with Equity was the
theme in GREEN consciousness, prior to the inversion. It was also reinforced in BLUE
consciousness after the inversion, and carried on in BROWN consciousness. Now it surfaces
again as an opposition to the idea that the wife's wisdom is in a higher state than the
husband's when it comes to spiritual and celestial matters. At least make them equal--begs
this lower form of consciousness. What opposes unity in BLACK
consciousness is Disconnection, as discussed above in relation to matrix 1. Here again now
is the list of BLACK temptations:
Here clearly we have the vastation of
our life in its very ultimates, because these are from the very firsts. The Writings say
that each heaven must have a corresponding hell that matches the closeness of the truths
to the Divine in terms of distance from the Divine. Each truth in the angel's mind
descends gradually to a lower heaven and then to the spiritual world and then to the
hells, in turn, until it reaches the hell where this particular truth is its exact
opposite, and there it rests. So the truths in the highest angels are matched in
opposition to the falsities of the lowest devils. High-low in the spiritual world is
measured by the purity vs. falsification of Divine truths. This is why celestial-rational
temptations are from the lowest hells that any husband can attain. The lower the hell, the
less aware we are of their connectivity to our mind. So the BLACK temptations are the last
that we can endure. The Lord cannot bring them to us and hope for victory, until we have
acquired celestial-rational truths. The Doctrine of the Wife is a collection of such
truths. Let's take up the next subject in the chart (matrix 3): Take the third issue in the chart:
The issue is the husband's philosophy of
life in relation to women. The philosophy of life is the intellectual apparatus in his
mind as he operates day to day. The part of this masculine apparatus that deals with
relationship to women involves, at the BLUE consciousness level, the idea that men
naturally have their membership and initiation into the masculine "brotherhood"
and that in order for this to be successful, women should and must be excluded. This
attitude covers both secular institutions (or brotherhoods) and religious (e.g., the
priesthood). One step up from this philosophy of
separatism is the idea in BROWN consciousness that women are really a necessary part of
men--their development and life, but separation periods or phases are legitimate and
necessary. This is the "part time" brotherhood idea, following which the man
must "reconnect" to the feminine, the feminine sphere and influence, in order to
avoid going off balance. But in the next step up (BLACK consciousness) we heal this
gender-ordained sectarianism with the idea that men are never to be separated from women
and are never to engage in their growth activities separate from women. And this can only
be true of the husband and the wife. You no doubt are beginning to see a
pattern as our consciousness moves from first (natural), to second (spiritual), to third
(celestial) ascending step. It is always the same: the inherent desire on the part of the
husband to find a justification for not uniting to the wife. And the type of justification
put forth is particular to each step. The temptations husbands must go through is marked
for each step. Let us continue with the next subject in parallel comparison between the
three ascending steps of regeneration: Take the fourth issue in the chart:
During the first ascending step we bring
together selections from the literal of Sacred Scripture in order to justify our demand
for surrender and submission by the wife and women in general. Men have a special
relationship to God, by creation. Men are called Sons and Heirs of God, but women are
called daughters, and they have less rights and privileges, even though they do have some.
But in the second ascending step we see this position as bogus. Looking at the literal
statements of the Writings we are instructed that "Sons of God" actually refers
to any individual, male or female, who loves and obeys God, and is thereby regenerated,
inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. We can see the bogus trick in our
earlier consciousness where we pretended that "Sons of God" means men, excluding
women because "Sons" is a male term. This bogus trick is no longer possible with
the Second Advent and the Writings of Swedenborg where these expressions from the Old and
New Testaments are explained in their rational reference. Similarly, "brotherly
love" means love to the neighbor. Daughters means the Church or truths of the Church
in its Doctrine. And so with this new knowledge we can see that we ought to look upon men
and women as equal in the eyes of God, each of us individuals, whether male or female,
relating to God and loving Him. But from hindsight as we enter the third ascending period,
we begin to suspect and dislike the idea that men and women are individuals in the eyes of
God, irrespective of their gender, and so on. We can see that this idea is just
another version of specialization, as discussed already. And instead we see the
celestial-rational version, namely, that men and women as individuals are incomplete human
beings and cannot partake fully of a relationship to God. It is only in our united status
as conjugial couple that we can stand as an individual angel, a true human being. The man
alone cannot stand with God, but only as a portion to his wife. Then he can stand before
God as an angel, pure and rational and complete. The husband's mind on his own as an
individual cannot be rational, cannot understand celestial-rational truths. But the
husband can understand celestial-rational truths and live them, when he is united to his
wife as a portion. And this
"complimentary" portion is such that he is the love of her wisdom and thus his
life is in accordance to her wisdom, not in accordance to his own wisdom standing as an
individual. Take the last issue in the chart:
Recall that in the earlier BLUE
consciousness we see truth and faith as masculine. We rely for this idea on selected
sentences we pick from the Word and then call them the authority of Sacred Scripture to
back up our expectations and demands from the wife. Then,
in the second ascending state (BROWN consciousness), we back off this strict
sectarianism between the genders and declare faith and truth to be masculine, but also
having feminine aspects. This admission, or intellectual position, is forced on us by the
literal of the Writings in which we are explicitly instructed that truth is sometimes
symbolized in Sacred Scripture as masculine and sometimes as feminine. Of course this idea already exists in
prior states of consciousness. Even the Greeks had goddesses for intellectual traits or
truth and justice. But this idea is not rational since we still think that truth is
"basically" masculine, that God is basically a "male," that a priest
must be represented by a male because Christ was a male. And so on, including the warning
that one must stay away from any ideas having to do with the "Feminine Divine,"
or the "Divine Mother," etc. We have the firm persuasion in this state of mind,
that the masculine is the primary gender in religion, in God, in holy things having to do
with God, with Doctrine, and so on. Thus the feminine is an excluded lower portion, or a
separated lower portion. And if not this, then the feminine has its own sublime functions
in relation to religion and God, but only as secondary to the masculine, which is to be
primary . This bogus position from the BROWN
consciousness period, is clearly seen through when you move on to the next step, the last
step (BLACK consciousness, third ascending step). You can always look back on a preceding
step and see things more clearly than when you were in that lower degree. But you cannot
look up or ahead to the next degree, and see anything at all. In BLACK consciousness you
perceive clearly that the feminine is the primary portion or position in the universe and
in the spiritual world and in heaven. "Primary" means interior, as taught in the
Writings. And the wisdom of women is more interior than the wisdom of men, plainly taught
in the Writings. The wisdom of women (symbolized by "Sarah" in the Old
Testament) is a moral wisdom, an inner wisdom. This wisdom is referred to as Divine Truth
in the Writings. But the wisdom of men is never referred to as Divine. It is a lower
wisdom called intellectual wisdom. So its' not a mystery or amazing news to
anyone familiar with the Writings that women's wisdom is in a primary relation to the
universe, while men are in a secondary status. We recognize this idea in our prior state
of consciousness (BROWN, spiritual-rational), but we don't act on it. We lower it in our
focus and estimation, while we raise the other focus, which is that the masculine is
primary. The Doctrine of the Wife explains itself by
integrating the passages that were selected before (in BROWN consciousness--The
Church of Balance) with the passages selected and adjoined to them in BLACK
consciousness--The Church of Unity.
One of the most enlightening revelations given in the Writings of Swedenborg is the rational that men are born oriented towards the love of the sex while women are born oriented towards the love of one of the sex. This rational distinction about male and female sexual characteristics is of course echoed in some obscure way by the traditional "double standard" that seems to exist in most societies--on this earth at least. Society's norms for men's sexual activities are more liberal or permissive than the norms for women. There are differences of course in terms of culture, religion, and education. Nevertheless, as we can gauge from history books and anthropology reports, the double standard is universal. The question then is what's behind this universality; what does it indicate about men? The revelations in the Writings on the
topic of conjugial love give clear rational answers, and one of them is that men are born
with the love of the sex while women are born with the love of one of the sex. This
spiritual genetic distinction and difference explains the double standard and many other
difficulties men have in becoming regenerated and achieving marital unity with his wife.
Thus he denies himself heaven. The wife on the other hand may easily end up in heaven with
a husband provided by the Lord with whom she can achieve unity. This is the deepest
striving of a woman, implanted in her by creation, as the Writings reveal. The woman's deepest striving and
longing, Divinely implanted in her soul by creation, is to become an angel. This is
because the purpose of all creation is to populate the heavens with human beings, and the
more there are, the more perfect heaven grows to eternity. This entire Divine scheme thus
depends on the earths in the physical world being nurseries to populate the endless hunger
of the heavens to grow in size. This is why the physical universe is expanding at the
speed of light, quickly and vastly increasing the rate of creation of more and more earths
that can be human nurseries to fill the endless heavens. This entire Divine scheme thus
concentrates in one object--the seed. The seed is the physical covering for
the soul. The covering is physical but the soul is spiritual. All things in the physical
world are made of things called matter, and so they are called material things. But all
things in the spiritual world are made of things called substance, and so they are called
substantive things. The covering of the seed is a material thing, but the soul contained
within, is a substantive thing. It's the same thing whether we say the soul is a
substantive thing or it is a spiritual things. When you hear "spiritual," be sure to think "substantive" otherwise you're in danger of slipping back into thinking that "spiritual" is less real or concrete than "material" or "physical." If you want to be rational you MUST think that the spiritual or substantive is MORE real than the material or physical. (See this article on substantive dualism). It's easy to convince yourself of this
if you consider the facts about the physical world in comparison to the facts about the
spiritual world, as reported directly by an honest and careful eye witness, namely the
reputed scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1771). His precise reports clearly show the
awesome raw power of our mind in the spiritual world after it is cut off from the physical
body. Swedenborg was uniquely given the opportunity by the Lord to be conscious in the
spiritual world while he was still connected to his physical body. For 27 years he wrote
daily for many hours, writing down faithfully every little detail he could observe in the
spiritual world. What an amazing boon to society!! To all humanity from now to the endless
future. And you can read it all in English right
now, online, if you wanted to! Just click here and read on the screen. You can even search
of particular topics he addressed in any of his many books. But to get back to our topic of women's
role in the universe: they are entrusted with the seed, whose significance I just
described. The entire Divine plan is concentrated in the soul of a woman as this love of
one of the sex. All her interests, and all her happinesses, will be below this one for
actualizing her role as the motherly agency for bringing this seed to develop within her
body, then giving birth to it as an infant, then nursing the infant and raising it to
become another potential angel for the endless heavens. This love of one of the sex that women
are born with is what drives their striving and longing to attain marital unity with her
husband. It is very very important to note that this love of the conjugial is in her soul
from the beginning, and from there it goes out or down into the mind, through the various
levels of the mind, descending and externalizing more and more until at last it exits into
the physical body--first into the chest area where the heart and lungs are, then down into
the genital area. And there it acts sexually. It is at this lowest and most external
level, which is the LAST in a long sequence, that a woman's love of one of the sex,
materializes into what we call "sex." In our lower sensuous consciousness
states before the inversion we men BEGIN our relationship with a woman at this most
external level we call "sex." You can see how unsuitable men and women
appear to one another in matters of sex, when they try to respect each other rather than
one bulldozing the other. The man is hungry for sex as he is animated and vivified by the
love of the sex that comes out of his soul into his mind, its various levels, and finally
exits into his genitals (skipping the chest area--I believe). Here now he is ready, armed,
and willing to forge ahead to the explosive end. While she is not ready, not prepared, and
not willing to go ahead. How unfortunate and wasteful--thinks the unregenerate man who
does not recognize a higher authority than his in his own mind. He rules his mental domain
and what's in it--he says. And so he is spiritually insane. We are, in this state of mind
and belief. And so we conclude that her reluctance is too bad. This is spiritual insanity. Because the
reality is that it is not too bad, it is good. And without it, we go to hell. But because men are hell bent from the
arrogance they refuse to tame, they reject the reluctance of the woman in physical sex,
and justify themselves instead. This devilish justification is what creates and upholds
pornography and adultery. Pornography may sound like too strong a
word for some people. You can use lighter words if you want. As long you are pinpointing
men's sexual interests manifested as an industry or habitual activity. In my generation of
the 20th and 21st centuries, men's sexual interests supports one of
the biggest industries and addictions. In other words, it is WIDESPREAD, actually
everywhere: on TV, on TV commercials, on TV news, in TV entertainment, in magazine and
book publishing, in materials created for "Adults," in clothes and fashion, on
the beach and at the office. Everywhere there is this male interest in satisfying men's
own love of the sex. Women are not considered. Men alone count. Women are forced, coerced,
enticed, recruited for the business, crude or subtle. When a man meets a woman, a struggle begins between his love of the sex and her love of one of the sex. To the man it appears that the genders are mismatched in terms of sexual desires. After they marry, the man's sexual interest slows down, dries up, dissolves into his pornographic fantasies. Now he will only feel potent with his wife when he is aroused by pornography. There is a large business that provides pornography for married couples, indicating that married men's need for pornography is widespread. Sexual impotence with married men is so common that when a new anti-impotence drug called Viagra became available a couple of years ago, millions of men rushed to obtain it and having obtained it, proudly lauded its efficacy. Nevertheless, with or without Viagra,
and all the other drugs like it that are coming on to the market, male potency will not
resurrect as long as men do not cross the inversion. To cross the inversion means that
they begin operating in their thinking from the rational truths revealed in the Writings
of Swedenborg. In this case, men will regain sexual potency as soon as they rationally
understand that sexual potency is the last step in a long sequence of internal events
involving their mind and the spiritual world from where God rules and where the heavens
and the hells of our afterlife reside. This is the origin of sexual potency: CONJUGIAL
LOVE.
Conjugial love descends from God through
the Spiritual Sun in the spiritual world where our mind lives now, and where we will live
consciously in the afterlife. Conjugial love descends into the minds of the inhabitants of
the Third Heaven, then filters down into the minds of the inhabitants of the Second
Heaven, then into the minds of the inhabitants of the First Heaven, then into the mind of
a man, and from there into his body down into his penis where he feels it like an
erection. You can see that this erection called sexual potency, is the last step of a long
series of events. Anywhere along this long chain, the progression of the influx downward
can be interrupted, absorbed, eliminated, turned into its opposite. And this is exactly what happens in the
mind of the male man before the inversion. The rational truths that are intended to
ultimate into his ejaculation are falsified and made irrational before they reach the
body. What descends therefore into his body is not truth that becomes potency, but falsity
that becomes impotence. Of course this happens gradually with all sorts of variations and
individual histories, including on-off potency, pornography, Viagra-and etc., but
ultimately, the end of all potency and the hatred of the idea of sex and the hatred of
women. As men our only escape from this hell
circuit is abandoning our love of the sex and adopting a woman's rational idea of sex,
which is, the love of one of the sex. In order for us men to accomplish this feat, we must
give up pornography. We must give up the enjoyment of pornography in all its forms. And
this has to be done gradually, one by one, in a long sequence of acts. Pornography is
everywhere, either for business, or in the eyes of the lusting man who sees a woman. Each
one of these occasions occur dozens of times a day, visually or mentally. And when one of
them occurs, we must act against it. We will be aware of our enjoyment of
pornography or adulterous fantasy. We can be alert to it, vigilant. It can be a private
thought or a public joke or some sexual harassment comment or gesture. Or it can be
something we read in a novel or the newspapers. In every case there will be an opportunity
for us to comment on the event. The event is your act, or thought, or enjoyment. You need
to comment on it. You can't just take your enjoyment and go on. If you do that, there is
no regeneration, no liberation from the slavery of the love of the sex, no salvation and
happiness in the love of one of the sex. A lot is at stake here!! Some men believe that adultery can be
sincere and caring, and doesn't necessarily involve pornography and promiscuity. But this
is bogus. Adultery, which means pornography or other sexual activity outside the wife, is
opposed and destructive of conjugial love which is based on the love of one of the sex
only. After we acquire the habit of
contradicting our pornographic acts and interests, the Lord gives us more and more
rational truths from which we can not only oppose pornographic enjoyment, but start
holding them in aversion. To the extent that we begin to have a horror of pornographic
enjoyment and acts, to that extent CHASTITY can move in and insure sexual potency with our
wife. Chastity is applied in a natural sense
to men and women who abstain from overt sexual activity and expression because of moral or
religious reasons. Abstaining for medical reasons, or out of fear, or out of other
reasons, is not chastity. It is chastity only when we abstain for religious, spiritual, or
moral reasons. But his is the natural or cultural definition of chastity. The spiritual
definition is different. According to the Writings, chastity can
only exist with married partners. Chastity can exist only in a married partner who
abstains form any pornographic enjoyment or act from a spiritual or religious reason in
relation to the sanctity of marriage. As we grow in our regeneration, from
first to third ascending step, our rational consciousness also grows from the rational
truths that we receive from the Lord through many ways and opportunities given us daily.
The most complete of these many ways is from the Writings of Swedenborg, the Lord's Second
Advent. At first these truths are natural-rational (BLUE consciousness), then
spiritual-rational (BROWN consciousness), and finally celestial-rational (BLACK
consciousness). At each level we deepen our understanding of how chastity creates the
environment for the development of conjugial love and marital unity. And so you must take the leap. Witness
your pornographic thoughts, acts, and enjoyments, even readinesses. Comment on them to
yourself, like you are a rational angel. One easy way to do this, in my opinion, is to
imagine that your wife is present in your mind, seeing what you're looking at, aware of
what you're thinking, feeling what you're enjoying. If you care about her, this thought of
her presence with you and aware, will instantly kill the pornographic enjoyment and put an
end to the pornographic act. To the extent that you engage in this
practice daily, sincerely, and effectively, to that extent you're learning to be chaste.
This is the secret of potency. Every husband who is in a chaste state of mind is extremely
potent, a fact that can be verified by anyone from the rational truths in the Writings as
well as from empirical research, and personal experience. According to the Writings, women do not
have states of sexual "excitement" similar to what we men have. Instead they
have states of "preparedness" for receiving the husband within her. Note this
does not mean women don't have an orgasm or have less pleasure than men or are interested
in having pleasure less than men, etc. It does not mean these things at all. It means to
characterize the difference between men and women in their innate sexuality. Women must
have the state of preparedness in order to voluntarily receive the husband, his seed or
intellectual wisdom. This state of preparedness is destroyed by acts of rejection, as
described above. So be very very careful not to destroy the sexual preparedness state your
wife must have in order to experience and desire conjoining sex as opposed to duty-bound
sex. And since acts of rejection are going to take place, be very very sure to make up for
each transgression you commit. Remember: for a man rejection often means being spurned on
sexually and coming on stronger. But for a woman it’s the opposite. An act of
rejection, no matter how small you think it is, inhibits her state of preparedness for
receiving the husband within her and thus conjoining her mind with his. Men hate having to make up in a way that
women need and desire. They rather be disconnected from their wife than make themselves
properly make up for an act of rejection they perpetrated on their wife. It's not enough
to bark at her "I'm sorry, honey." For then the question is left unanswered:
Sorry for what? It's not enough to specify what you did that's bad, but you also need to
find yourself guilty several times in her eyes, and soothe the pain and suffering you
caused her by making reparations. You need to give her the feeling that you're going out
of your way to make reparations. Whatever that is for your honey, do it, friend.
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