Divine Love and Wisdom (Rogers) n. 369

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369. People recognize that a person's character is such as his dominant love, but only his character as regards his mind and heart, and not as regards his body, thus not his whole character. However, from abundant experience in the spiritual world I have learned that the character of a person from head to toe, or from his first elements in the head to his last elements in the body, is such as his love is. For people in the spiritual world are all forms of their love, angels forms of some heavenly love, and devils forms of some hellish love. The latter are hideous in face and body, while the former are beautiful in both face and body. Moreover, when their love is attacked, their faces change; and if it is severely attacked, they vanish altogether. This is a peculiar phenomenon in that world. It happens because their bodies are one with their minds. [2] The reason is apparent from what we said above, that the constituents of the body are all derivative forms, that is to say, forms woven by fibers issuing from their first elements, elements which are the recipient vessels of love and wisdom; and when the first elements are of such a character, their derivative ones cannot be of another. Consequently in whatever direction the first elements go, the derivative ones follow. They cannot be separated. So it is that a person who elevates his mind to the Lord is wholly elevated to the Lord, and that a person who casts his mind down to hell is wholly cast down into it. Consequently the whole person comes either into heaven or into hell in accordance with his life's love. It is an observation of angelic wisdom that a person's mind is the person, because God is a person, and that the body is the mind's outward constituent which feels and acts, so that they are one, and not two.


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