a thing he falls from heaven. They added that natural spirits do not
believe such conjunctions as theirs to be possible, for the reason that
with those who are merely natural there is no marriage from a spiritual
origin, which is of good and truth, but only a marriage from a natural
origin; therefore there is no union of minds, but only a union of bodies
from a lascivious disposition in the flesh; and this lust is from a
universal law impressed upon and thus implanted in everything animate
and inanimate from creation. The law is that everything in which there
is force wills to produce its like and to multiply its kind to infinity
and to eternity. As the posterity of Jacob, who were called the sons of
Israel, were merely natural men, and thus their marriages were not
spiritual but carnal, so they were permitted on account of the hardness
of their hearts to take more wives than one. (A.E., n. 1004.)

But it is to be noted that adulteries are more and less infernal and
abominable. The adulteries that spring from more grievous evils and
their falsities are more grievous, and those from the milder evils and
their falsities are milder; for adulteries correspond to adulterations
of good and consequent falsifications of truth; adulterations of good
are in themselves evils, and falsifications of truth are in themselves
falsities. According to correspondences with these the hells are
arranged into genera and species. (A.E., n. 1006.)

In brief, from every conjunction of evil and falsity in the spiritual
world a sphere of adultery flows forth, but only from those who are in
falsities in regard to doctrine and in evils in regard to life; not from
those who are in falsities in regard to doctrine but are in goods in
regard to life, for in such there is no conjunction of evil and falsity,
but only in the former. That sphere flows forth particularly from
priests who have taught falsely and lived wickedly; for these have