178. XIX. THAT THOSE WHO ARE IN LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL FEEL THEMSELVES TO BE A UNITED MAN AND AS ONE FLESH. That this is the case must be confirmed, not from the mouth of any inhabitant of earth but from the mouth of inhabitants of heaven; for with men on earth at this day, there is no love truly conjugial. Moreover, men are enveloped with a gross body, and this dulls and absorbs the sensation that two partners are a united man and as one flesh. Furthermore, those in the world who love their partners only outwardly and not inwardly, do not wish to hear this; they also think of this matter from the flesh, lasciviously. Such is not the case with angels of heaven, inasmuch as they are in spiritual and celestial conjugial love and are not enveloped in so gross a body as are men on earth. I have heard it attested by those who have lived for ages with their partners in heaven, that they feel themselves to be thus united, the husband feeling himself to be united with his wife, and the wife with her husband, and each having the feeling of being in the other, as though united even in the flesh, although they are separate beings. [2] They said that on earth, the cause of this rare phenomenon was that the unition of their souls and minds is felt in their flesh, and this because the soul makes not only the inmost things of the head but also the inmost of the body. So likewise the mind, which is midway between soul and body; this appears to be in the head, yet actually it is also in the whole body. Furthermore, they said that it is because of this that actions which the soul and mind intend, flow out from the body in an instant; also that it is because of this that after the rejection of the body they had in the former world, they themselves are perfect men. Now since the soul and mind closely adjoin themselves to the flesh of the body to the end that they may operate and produce their effects, it follows that with married partners,* the unition of soul and mind is felt as being one flesh even in the body. When the angels said this, I heard from some spirits who were standing by, "These are matters of angelic wisdom which are transcendental"; but these spirits were natural-rational and not spiritual-rational.
* The Latin is cum conjuge (with a consort), but this is clearly an error for cum conjugibus as in the translation.