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I would be delighted to know your reactions. For comments please email Leon James: leon@hawaii.edu
Doctrine of the Wife for Husbands:
A Spiritual Practice for Achieving Unity
by Leon James
Date: 1985-2004
Part 2
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:
www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/wife.html
1. The Two Steps of Unity: External Mind and Internal Mind (Diagrams 1 and 2)
| From Swedenborg's Conjugial Love CL 161 (5) A wife inspires the union in her husband according to her love, and a husband receives it according to his wisdom. The idea that a wife inspires the love and thus the union in her husband is today kept hidden from men. Indeed, they universally deny it. The reason is that their wives persuade them that men alone are the lovers, and themselves recipients, or that men are forms of love, and themselves forms of compliance. They even rejoice at heart when their husbands believe this. Wives persuade their husbands of this for many reasons, all of which have to do with the prudence and circumspect nature of wives (concerning which, something will be said hereafter, and in particular in the chapter on the reasons for states of coldness, separations and divorces between married partners*). We say that it is wives who inspire or insinuate the love in their husbands, because not a particle of conjugial love, not even of love for the opposite sex, is seated in men, but only in wives and women. The fact of this was vividly shown me in the spiritual world: [2] A conversation on this very subject once occurred there, and some men, having been persuaded by their wives, kept insisting that they were the lovers, and not their wives, but that their wives were recipients of love from them. In order to settle the dispute over this question, all women, including their wives, were removed from the men; and together with them the underlying atmosphere of love for the opposite sex was taken away. When this was taken away, the men came into a state altogether foreign to them and never before felt, at which they complained considerably. Then, while they were in this state, some women were brought to them, and the wives were presented to their husbands; and the women and the wives spoke sweetly to them. But at their blandishments the men became cold, and turning away they said to each other, "What is this? What is a woman?" And when some of the women said that they were their wives, they replied, "What is a wife? We do not know you." However, when the wives began to grieve over this utterly cold indifference on the part of their husbands, and some of them to cry, an atmosphere of love for the feminine sex and of conjugial love (which to this point had been taken away from the men) was restored. And then at once the men returned to their former state - the ones who loved their marriages into their state, and the ones who loved the opposite sex in general into their state. Thus the men were convinced that not a particle of conjugial love, not even of love for the opposite sex, resided in them, but only in wives and women. But still, after that, owing to their prudence, the wives induced the men to believe that the love resided in the men, and that some spark of it might possibly have passed from the men to themselves. [3] I have presented this experience here in order that it may be known that wives are forms of love, and husbands its receivers. Husbands are receivers of it according to the wisdom in them, especially the wisdom which results from religion, which is that they are to love only their wives. And this is plain from considering that when they love only their wives, their love is concentrated, and being also ennobled, remains in its strength, endures and lasts; and that otherwise it would be like taking wheat from a granary and throwing it to the dogs, resulting in an insufficiency at home. * See nos. 234ff. CL 162. (6) This union takes place gradually from the first days of marriage, and in people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, it becomes deeper and deeper to eternity. The first heat in marriage does not join two people together, because it draws its character from a love for the opposite sex, which is a love belonging to the body and on that account to the spirit. And whatever is in the spirit as a result of the body does not last long. But love that is in the body as a result of the spirit does last. Love belonging to the spirit, and to the body as a result of the spirit, is insinuated into the souls and minds of married partners together with friendship and mutual trust. When friendship and mutual trust join together with the first love in marriage, conjugial love results, which opens the partners' hearts and inspires in them the sweet enjoyments of love, and this more and more deeply as friendship and trust are added to the original love, and as that original love enters into this friendship and trust and they into it. CL 163. (7) A wife's union with her husband's intellectual wisdom takes place inwardly, but with his moral wisdom outwardly. Wisdom in men is twofold, intellectual and moral, and their intellectual wisdom has to do with their understanding alone, while their moral wisdom has to do with both their understanding and at the same time their life. This can be concluded and seen from simply viewing the matter and examining it. Still, to have it known what we mean by the intellectual wisdom of men, and what we mean by their moral wisdom, we will list some specific examples: Various terms are used to designate those elements which have to do with men's intellectual wisdom. In general, they are called knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. In particular, however, they are rationality, judgment, genius, learning, sagacity. But because everyone has special kinds of knowledge peculiar to him in his occupation, these kinds of knowledge are therefore many and various. For there are special kinds of knowledge peculiar to clergymen, to civil officers, to their various officials, to judges, to physicians and pharmacists, to soldiers and sailors, to craftsmen and workmen, to farmers, and so on. To intellectual wisdom belong also all the fields of study to which adolescents are introduced in schools, and through which they are afterwards led into intelligence; and these studies are also called by various names, such as philosophy, physics, geometry, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, law, political science, ethics, history, and many more, through which, as through gates, one enters into intellectual pursuits, from which comes intellectual wisdom. CL 164. Elements having to do with moral wisdom in men, on the other hand, are all moral virtues which have regard to the way they live and which enter into their manner of life. And they include as well spiritual virtues which spring from love toward God and love for the neighbor, and which flow together into those loves. Virtues which have to do with men's moral wisdom likewise have various names, and they are called temperance, sobriety, integrity, kindliness, friendliness, modesty, honesty, helpfulness, courteousness; also diligence, industriousness, skillfulness, alacrity, generosity, liberality, magnanimity, energy, courage, prudence - not to mention many others. Spiritual virtues in men are love of religion, charity, truthfulness, faith, conscience, innocence, as well as many more. These virtues, both moral and spiritual, can be attributed in general to a man's love and zeal for religion, for the public good, for his country, for his fellow citizens, for his parents, for his wife, and for his children. In all of these justice and judgment prevail. Justice has to do with moral wisdom, and judgment has to do with intellectual wisdom. CL 165. We say that a wife's union with her husband's intellectual wisdom exists inwardly, because this wisdom is characteristic of the intellect of men, and it ascends into a light in which women are not. That is why women do not speak from it, but in gatherings of men where matters like this are being discussed, they keep silent and only listen. Nevertheless, wives still have these things in them inwardly, as is apparent from the fact that they do listen, inwardly recognizing and concurring with those things which they hear and have heard from their husbands. On the other hand, a wife's union with men's moral wisdom exists outwardly, because the virtues of this wisdom are akin for the most part to similar virtues in women, and they spring from the husband's intellectual will, with which the wife's will unites and forms a marriage. And because a wife recognizes these virtues in her husband better than he recognizes them in himself, we say that a wife's union with them exists outwardly. CL 166. (8) In order that this union may be achieved, a wife is given a perception of her husband's affections, and also the highest prudence in knowing how to moderate them. This, too, is one of the secrets of conjugial love which wives conceal within and keep to themselves - the fact that wives recognize their husbands' affections and discreetly moderate them. They recognize these affections through the three senses of sight, hearing and touch, and they moderate them without their husbands' being at all aware of it. Now, because these are among things kept secret by wives, it is not appropriate for me to reveal them in their particulars. It is, however, appropriate for wives themselves, and therefore I have included at the end of several chapters four narrative accounts in which wives themselves reveal them. Two of the accounts come from the three wives living in the hall on which I saw what seemed to be golden rain falling. * And the other two accounts come from seven wives sitting in a rose garden. |
Diagram 1 below shows the spiritual dynamics of conjugial marriages. There are two major steps to be taken, one for achieving unity in the external mind, and the other for achieving unity in the internal mind. The unity in the internal mind develops within the unity achieved in the external mind. In step 1 the Divine influx is into the external portion of the affective mind of the husband and the external portion of the cognitive mind of the wife. In each the influx produces its own gender specific effect due to the construction of the affective and cognitive organs of the husband and the wife. In the husband, the Divine influx activates his love of becoming wise. From this love, as the arrow shows, the husband collects, acquires, and adjoins moral wisdom. This is a masculine form of rationality in the man's external cognitive mind. In the wife, the Divine influx is into the cognitive mind where it activates a perception of moral wisdom. This is a feminine form of rationality in the external cognitive mind of the woman. The wife covers over this moral wisdom from the Divine and adjoins to it her love of the husband's moral wisdom, as the arrow shows. In conclusion, for step 1, there is a unity achieved between the wife and the husband due to the wife becoming the love of her husband's moral wisdom. Note that this unity is only in the external mind. Note also that the unity rests on the wife becoming the love of the husband's wisdom. The husband does not contribute to the union in a direct way as the wife does. As a result the union is not complete. It is one-sided. It is not a reciprocal union, not a full unity.
But in the second step, as diagram 1 above shows, the husband becomes the love of the wife's celestial wisdom. The wife's inner wisdom, that is, the wisdom she has in her internal mind, is called celestial wisdom ("Sarah"). She has this wisdom covered over with her love of the husband's intellectual wisdom. Note that in the external mind (step 1), the husband's wisdom is called moral wisdom, but in his internal mind his wisdom is called intellectual wisdom. The wife, now in her internal mind, becomes the love of the husband's intellectual wisdom, while before in the external mind, she became the love of his moral wisdom. At the same time the husband becomes the love of his wife's celestial wisdom. While before, in the external mind, he had the love of becoming wise, now his love is for the inner wisdom of his wife. As you can see from the arrows, there is now a reciprocal union between husband and wife, while before in the external mind, the husband did not reciprocate. Now the union is reciprocal, complete, in both in the external and the internal portions of the mind of the married partners.
Diagram 2 below shows the two states of attaining internal marriage unity. The internal mind is shown within the external mind, as usual in these diagrams (see other examples in this article on the genes of consciousness).
Diagram 2 above shows that the external mind is constructed out of sensuous consciousness during the three descending steps (WHITE, YELLOW, GREEN consciousness phases). These three steps in achieving external unity are described in the chart above (matrix 1) and are labeled ROMANCE, DOMINANCE, EQUITY. When these three stages are resolved, fulfilled, and completed, unity between husband and wife has been achieved--IN THE EXTERNAL MIND ONLY. This external unity is based on the love of the sex. After the inversion line is crossed, the three ascending steps proceed to establish unity IN THE INTERNAL MIND as well. Internal unity grow within external unity in three phases which in the chart above (matrix 1) are labeled SURRENDER, SPECIALIZATION, UNITY (color correspondences: BLUE, BROWN, BLACK). At the end of the sixth phase of a regenerating marriage, the conjugial genes of consciousness have been formed in the husband and the wife, and this organic substance is what unites them into "one flesh", that is, one angelic human being. This state can be portrayed as follows:
| From
Swedenborg's Conjugial
Love 170. (12) A wife joins herself to her husband by appeals to his will's desires. As this is a matter of common knowledge, explanation of it is made unnecessary. 171. (13) A wife is joined to her husband by the atmosphere of her life emanating from her love. From every person there emanates, indeed pours, a spiritual atmosphere from the affections of his love, and this atmosphere surrounds him. It also enters into the natural atmosphere arising from the body, and the two atmospheres combine together. 172. (14) A wife is joined to her husband by her assimilation of the powers of his manhood, though this depends on the spiritual love they have for each other. That this is so is also something I have gained from the testimony of angels. They said that the seminal fluids expended by husbands are universally received by their wives and added to the life in them, and that the wives in consequence lead a life in harmony and in progressively greater harmony with their husbands. Moreover, that the effect of this is to bring about a union of souls and conjunction of minds. The angels said that this is because a husband's seminal fluid contains his soul, and also his mind in respect to the interior elements of it which have been joined to the soul. (...) However, the angels added that occurrences of the utilization and assimilation in wives of the life of their husbands are contingent on their conjugial love, because it is love, which is a spiritual union, which joins two people together. And that this, too, has been provided, for many reasons. 173. (15) A wife thus receives into herself an image of her husband, and from it perceives, sees and feels his affections. From the arguments presented above, it follows, as something already attested, that wives receive into themselves matters that have to do with the wisdom of their husbands, thus matters belonging to their souls and minds, and in this way, from being maidens, they turn themselves into wives. |
You have now arrived to that part of the Doctrine of the Wife that faces you down in each of the six periods. You now have to look at yourself in a way you didn't have to before. You are now holding up a mirror to yourself as a husband, and this mirror is your wife's consciousness. From now on you will have to step down from the abstract support you might have given to the idea of the Doctrine of the Wife and put it up against your individual particular case history and biography. Here is what you'll be told about yourself. Read the chart first, then we will discuss it.
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF
THE TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
| I
INFANCY WHITE CELESTIAL SENSUOUS |
ROMANCE vs. REJECTION |
**
being unfaithful to his wife ** rejecting his wife in any way ** being disloyal to his wife ** being unfriendly to his wife ** fails to support her ** not coming to her rescue ** allowing her to feel abandoned ** etc. etc. |
| II
CHILDHOOD YELLOW SPIRITUAL SENSUOUS |
DOMINANCE vs. HURTFULNESS |
**
complaining about his wife ** dominating or controlling his wife ** neglecting his wife physically or mentally ** annoying his wife and not stopping ** driving her crazy ** criticizing his wife ** pouting to his wife and acting cold ** ignoring her ** lying or keeping information from her ** being secretive and acting on his own ** deliberately confusing her, misleading her ** manipulating her, controlling her ** etc. etc. |
| III
ADOLESCENCE GREEN NATURAL SENSUOUS |
EQUITY vs. ABUSIVENESS |
**
denigrating his wife ** insulting her ** attacking her honor ** causing her to doubt herself ** belittling her ** taking advantage of her, using her ** abusing his wife physically or mentally ** making her feel ashamed, worthless ** bullying his wife through threat or intimidation ** endangering his wife and not caring ** etc. etc. |
INVERSION |
||
IV YOUNG ADULTHOOD BLUE NATURAL RATIONAL |
SURRENDER vs. PREROGATIVES |
**
treating his wife severely ** making her feel guilty, sinful ** insisting on male prerogatives ** quotes the Bible to her to justify himself ** likes the philosophy of male chauvinism ** indulges himself and puts himself ahead of his wife ** demanding things from his wife and insisting ** etc. etc. |
V ADULTHOOD BROWN SPIRITUAL RATIONAL |
SPECIALIZATION vs. INSECURITIES |
**
feeling disapproval for his wife ** being intolerant of something about his wife ** fears the feminization of religion, wanting gender roles and rules ** puts the Church ahead of the wife ** rejects affirmative action for husbands (like the Doctrine of the Wife or, feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society) ** does not mind using gender biased language like "man" and "he" ** secretly believes in the intellectual inferiority of women ** doesn't mind if the wife feels "closed out" from a portion of his life ** is willing to remain in conjugial cold in his internal mind as long as he feels heat towards her in the external mind ** does not feel responsible for his wife's insecurities stemming from the doctrine of specialization ** does not feel sympathy for the insecurities she has about gender role divisions and how these interfere with conjugial love ** etc. etc. |
VI OLD AGE BLACK CELESTIAL RATIONAL |
UNITY vs. DISCONNECTION |
**
expresses impatience to his wife ** discounts in his mind what wife wants or thinks ** does not value something his wife values ** automatically believes himself before he believes his wife ** likes the idea of treating women special, yet is inwardly proud of his maleness ** is inclined to love his own wisdom before his wife's ** says that he puts the wife ahead of the Church, but doesn't ** says he accepts the Doctrine of the Wife, but makes exceptions when he feels like it ** practices the principle of affirmative action for husbands (=feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society), but only on a part time basis ** dedicated to unity and eternity, yet tolerates separation when convenient ** disconnects himself from his wife as soon as she stands up to him, immunizing his emotions so she can't bother him or "get to him" ** feels self-sufficient in his internal mind, untouchable, independent ** enjoys his wife's frustration at not being able to get to him on the inside (influence him or make him back off) ** practices being a countercurrent to his wife, enjoying the sense of power ** etc. etc. |
The color code helps you keep track of the characteristics of each period or segment and what it takes to overcome the temptations given in that period. Remember this general rule that holds for all charts:
- WHITE are CELESTIAL temptations in the EXTERNAL (sensuous) mind (INFANCY period of marriage)
- YELLOW are SPIRITUAL temptations in the EXTERNAL (sensuous) mind (CHILDHOOD period of marriage)
- GREEN are NATURAL temptations in the EXTERNAL (sensuous) mind (ADOLESCENCE period of marriage)
- BLUE are NATURAL temptations in the INTERNAL (rational) mind (YOUNG ADULTHOOD period of marriage)
- BROWN are SPIRITUAL temptations in the INTERNAL (rational) mind (ADULTHOOD period of marriage)
- BLACK are CELESTIAL temptations in the INTERNAL (rational) mind (OLD AGE period of marriage)
We can also put the angels together and recall this rule based on the above:
- WHITE and BLACK temptations are CELESTIAL (romance and unity VS. rejection and disconnection)
- YELLOW and BROWN temptations are SPIRITUAL (dominance and specialization VS. hurtfulness and insecurities)
- GREEN and BLUE temptations are NATURAL (equity and surrender VS. abusiveness and prerogatives)
You should be able to reconstruct from memory the main elements of the chart. Only in this way can you use the chart as a basis for keeping track objectively of your married life and your relationship to your wife. This relationship is the most important relationship we are ever going to have. It is this relationship that will determine our lot and fate in the afterlife, hence our happiness or misery to eternity. Surely it is worth the mental effort of acquiring the language of these charts as an aid, a map for navigating the successive states we must undergo.
Now let's focus on the three main conflict themes:
- romance and unity VS. rejection and disconnection
- dominance and specialization VS. hurtfulness and insecurities
- equity and surrender VS. abusiveness and prerogatives
The elements before the VS. represent the normal intended steps in each period, while the elements following the VS. represent the vastated or corrupted steps in each period.
We will now examine the character of the temptations in each of the six periods of our development as regenerating husbands.
| From Swedenborg's Conjugial
Love 180. (21) The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust, a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these, bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and, owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven. All of these states are inherent in conjugial love and consequently spring from it, and the reason is that conjugial love originates from the marriage between goodness and truth, and this marriage comes from the Lord. |
Romance (WHITE) and unity (BLACK) is our end game; more specifically, unity within romance. This is the state that the celestial angels are in. In their internal mind: unity; in their external mind: romance. Romance is part of sensuous consciousness, while unity is part of rational consciousness. We can achieve this state now to the extent we are willing endure changing ourselves by overcoming the six types of temptations. To achieve unity we must overcome our great love for male conveniences (see BLACK temptations below). This is a kind of laziness of our rational consciousness. We want our conveniences (which is sensuous, not rational), but we also want unity (which is a rational consciousness, not sensuous). Unity is not convenient much of the time, and so we want to turn it on and off--at our convenience. That's how we males think and feel before we are regenerated. Obviously we cannot achieve unity and live in heaven as long as we put our personal conveniences ahead of our unity with our wife. What will prevent us from achieving the end game?
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF THE
TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
| I INFANCY WHITE CELESTIAL SENSUOUS |
ROMANCE vs. REJECTION |
**
being unfaithful to his wife ** rejecting his wife in any way ** being disloyal to his wife ** being unfriendly to his wife ** fails to support her ** not coming to her rescue ** allowing her to feel abandoned ** ceasing to talk to her in a tender voice (contrast the voice you're using with a pet or baby) ** ceasing to be solicitous (e.g., when she hurts herself, or sneezes, or sighs) ** ceasing to remember personal celebrations (e.g., where you had your first kiss, or when you got engaged) ** ceasing to provide surprises for her (states of excitement she needs and enjoys) ** etc. etc. |
The chart gives the answer. The end of romance in the wife's sensuous consciousness is her husband's acts of rejection, and the end of unity in the wife's rational consciousness is her husband's preference of his convenience over unity with the wife (see BLACK temptations below). To keep romance alive in our wife's heart we must avoid any deeds of rejection. And to keep unity alive in her goals we must avoid choosing our convenience over unity with her. Look at the WHITE list of temptations--they detail the various ways we husbands reject our wife and destroy the romance in her heart.
Discuss the WHITE chart with your wife. Make up a hypothetical scale like this one, and rate every item.
How often do I behave this way in relation to my wife? |
||||
| never do it | only do it as an exception | do it from time to time | regularly do it | am always ready to do it |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Let both of you fill it out independently and then compare. But remember this: your wife will UNDERESTIMATE how often you do these things to her, to spare your feelings, because she loves you, and also so that her honesty doesn't blow you away and then she'll some repairing to do to fix your ego. And you will also UNDERESTIMATE how much you do these bad things to her because we are biased in favor of ourselves and quite blind to ourselves as a result. This is why we need the wife to lead us out of this hellish morass we call our ego and character.
And don't forget to solicit from her to specify more items where the ** etc. etc. line is. Give her plenty of paper!! And of course, you must do that yourself independently of her, and then again after you see what she added. But the responsibility rests on you to ferret out all your WHITE temptations.
| From Swedenborg's Conjugial
Love 189. We say that a woman feels the delights of her warmth in the light of a man; but what we mean is that a woman feels the delights of her warmth in the wisdom of a man, because wisdom is what receives it, and love has its pleasures and delights when it finds this reception in something corresponding to itself. This does not mean, however, that warmth has pleasure with its light apart from forms, but in them. And all the more does spiritual warmth have pleasure with spiritual light in them, because it is from wisdom and love that these forms are alive and thus responsive. |
| Excerpt from an article by Rev. John Odhner: Does God Really Say That? We can understand the answer to this question better if we begin at the very beginning. The book of Genesis contains a parable about creation. It says that when God first created people He made them male and female, so that both together were God's image and likeness. At that time He provided that the two should be "one flesh." There is no hint that God intended in the beginning for either male or female to have superiority. Masculine dominance came later. As time passed people turned away from the Lord, and deliberately disobeyed Him. As a result, they brought suffering upon themselves. Then God said that because they had disobeyed the man would have to labor hard for his food: "Cursed is the ground for your sake... Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,...in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread." For the woman's part, her sorrow would "multiply greatly," and she would have pain in childbirth. And God said to her, "Your husband shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:16-19) The context makes it quite clear that male domination was part of the woman's punishment. It is to be considered a curse when a husband rules, just as much as pain in childbirth and thistles and thorns in the ground were curses. This story shows that male dominance is the result of man's evil, not a part of God's ideal order. |
Dominance is a status differential. Husband and wife must have a dominance arrangement that is mutually favorable and beneficial. Dominion and control is an abuse of dominance. Dominance simply means to achieve a mutually agreeable and comfortable status relationship. Specialization (see BROWN consciousness below) means to understand rationally why men and women are created for each other as organic portions that fit into a unity. This specialization entails organic differences from the inmost soul to the outmost body parts. At every level of detail or unit of comparison, the woman's portion will be reciprocal to the man's portion, and no portion between them can be the same but only reciprocal. Hence they require different treatment suitable to its structure. When the husband can recognize this and practices it in daily interactions with his wife, then he has achieved stability in sensuous dominance through rational specialization within it. This will not be fully achieved until the BROWN temptations are overcome (see below).
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF THE
TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
| II
CHILDHOOD YELLOW SPIRITUAL SENSUOUS |
DOMINANCE vs. HURTFULNESS |
**
complaining about his wife ** dominating or controlling his wife ** neglecting his wife physically or mentally ** annoying his wife and not stopping ** driving her crazy ** criticizing his wife ** pouting to his wife and acting cold ** ignoring her ** lying or keeping information from her ** being secretive and acting on his own ** deliberately confusing her, misleading her ** manipulating her, controlling her ** etc. etc. |
The chart indicates that hurtfulness is the result of not achieving a mutually comfortable dominance pattern in marriage. For the most part this means that the husband is hurtful to his wife. Look at the YELLOW list of temptations. They spell out the various ways you can be hurtful to your wife by failing to work out a mutually comfortable dominance pattern. Each of these acts you do on a daily basis, hurts her. These are evil deeds of hurtfulness, each one of them, and the cumulation of them is devestating to your wife--to her mental nad physical health. And of course it is devastating to you, to your spiritual growth and survival.
Discuss the YELLOW chart with your wife. Make up a hypothetical scale like this one, and rate every item.
How often do I behave this way in relation to my wife? |
||||
| never do it | only do it as an exception | do it from time to time | regularly do it | am always ready to do it |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Let both of you fill it out independently and then compare. But remember this: your wife will UNDERESTIMATE how often you do these things to her, to spare your feelings, because she loves you, and also so that her honesty doesn't blow you away and then she'll some repairing to do to fix your ego. And you will also UNDERESTIMATE how much you do these bad things to her because we are biased in favor of ourselves and quite blind to ourselves as a result. This is why we need the wife to lead us out of this hellish morass we call our ego and character.
And don't forget to solicit from her to specify more items where the ** etc. etc. line is. Give her plenty of paper!! And of course, you must do that yourself independently of her, and then again after you see what she added. But the responsibility rests on you to ferret out all your YELLOW temptations.
| Excerpt from an article by Rev. John Odhner: Who Should Be Submissive? In both the creation story and the teachings of Jesus we see that human evil and "hardness of heart" has led to men mistreating their wives. Masculine dominance is not God's ideal, but a sad reality. Now consider Paul's teaching: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." (Ephesians 5:22) A husband with a tendency to look down on women might use this passage as an excuse for continuing to put himself first. But such a person would be completely missing the point of the passage. Paul meant that everyone should be submissive, not just wives. The verse just before says, "Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God," (Ephesians 5:21) e.g., wives submit to husbands, and husbands submit to wives. The Christian way to greatness is through humility and submission, not through pride, rebellion and domination. Peter, speaking on the same subject, said, Submit yourselves to every human ordinance for the Lord's sake." (1 Peter 2:13) This does not mean that every human ordinance is good. It simply means that we gain more through humility than through rebellion. He goes on to say, "Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh...for what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer for it, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God." (1 Peter 2:18-20) Peter then asks us to follow the example of Christ, who, "when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, threatened not." (1 Peter 2:23) "Likewise," Peter says, "you wives be submissive to your own husbands." (1 Peter 3:1) The implication is clear: in submitting to their husbands, wives are like Christ when He submitted to His enemies. This does not make it right for the husband to dominate any more than it was right to crucify the Lord. Never anywhere does the Bible say, "Husbands, rule over your wives!" The message to everyone is to be humble. "All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5) "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." (Matthew 20:27) Equal Standing The Bible shows that neither the man nor the woman has a special advantage in being a Christian. Christ does not choose men in preference to women, or relate to men more directly. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: For you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 4:28) It is true that women are dependent upon men, yet it is equally true that men are dependent upon women. "Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11) They are "heirs together to the grace of life." (1 Peter 3:7) "God created man in His own image...male and female." (Genesis 1:27) Both of them together are the likeness of God. |
Equity vs. Abusiveness is the theme of the GREEN temptations.
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF THE
TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
| III
ADOLESCENCE GREEN NATURAL SENSUOUS |
EQUITY vs. ABUSIVENESS |
**
denigrating his wife ** insulting her ** attacking her honor ** causing her to doubt herself ** belittling her ** taking advantage of her, using her ** abusing his wife physically or mentally ** making her feel ashamed, worthless ** bullying his wife through threat or intimidation ** endangering his wife and not caring ** etc. etc. |
INVERSION |
||
Equity refers to the just allocation of rights and privileges in marriage. From the point of view of civil law and moral justice women should have equal rights with men in all things. They should have equal opportunities and equal access to goods and services, including honors and recognition. But this in itself is not sufficient to establish real equity between husband and wife. The norms of society favor men in many different ways and its important to break those habits that hurt the progression to unity. Look at the list of GREEN temptations. They detail the many ways we are abusive to our wife on a daily basis. These acts of abuse are opposite to true equity. The kind of true equity that leads to eventual unity eliminates these.
Discuss the GREEN chart with your wife. Make up a hypothetical scale like this one, and rate every item.
How often do I behave this way in relation to my wife? |
||||
| never do it | only do it as an exception | do it from time to time | regularly do it | am always ready to do it |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Let both of you fill it out independently and then compare. But remember this: your wife will UNDERESTIMATE how often you do these things to her, to spare your feelings, because she loves you, and also so that her honesty doesn't blow you away and then she'll some repairing to do to fix your ego. And you will also UNDERESTIMATE how much you do these bad things to her because we are biased in favor of ourselves and quite blind to ourselves as a result. This is why we need the wife to lead us out of this hellish morass we call our ego and character.
And don't forget to solicit from her to specify more items where the ** etc. etc. line is. Give her plenty of paper!! And of course, you must do that yourself independently of her, and then again after you see what she added. But the responsibility rests on you to ferret out all your GREEN temptations.
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF
THE TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
INVERSION |
||
IV YOUNG ADULTHOOD BLUE NATURAL RATIONAL |
SURRENDER vs. PREROGATIVES |
** treating his
wife severely ** making her feel guilty, sinful ** insisting on male prerogatives ** quotes the Bible to her to justify himself ** likes the philosophy of male chauvinism ** indulges himself and puts himself ahead of his wife ** demanding things from his wife and insisting ** etc. etc. |
BLUE temptations carry the theme of
Surrender vs. Prerogatives. "Surrender" here refers to the crossing of the
inversion line with respect to our philosophy of life, the basis for our daily operations
as an individual. Prior to the inversion all the steps in the development of our mind were
"descending" steps. "Descending" in a spiritual sense refers to the
order of the angelic heavens. Our
consciousness starts out with the highest celestial angels (Third Heaven) during our
Infancy period (celestial, WHITE). They are then removed by the Lord and replaced by the
angels of the Second Heaven called Spiritual Angels. This occurs as we take the second
descending steps (spiritual, YELLOW). Finally in the third descending step (GREEN,
natural) we are with the lowest angels in the First Heaven called Natural Angels). During
these three descending steps our sensuous consciousness has reached its full development.
Our rational consciousness has not yet
been born (BLUE, BROWN, BLACK). As we complete the third descending step, we hit the
inversion line. We can do either of two things. We can avoid crossing to the other side
and refuse to undergo the inversion of our mind. In that case we continue to make two more
descending steps. These steps are below the inversion line. One is called the sensuous
degree of consciousness, and the other which is the lowest,
is called the corporeal degree of consciousness. When the mind is immersed in these
degrees and are disconnected from the upper degrees, we exist in hell. We are in company
with all those individuals since the beginning of the race who already inhabit these
sub-human regions. Swedenborg has described the conditions of life of these people and
also what their thinking and emotions are. If you read these descriptions you'll be filled
with fear and the desire to avoid joining that monstrous crowd of degraded humans.
And yet when we are born today we are
with them in the vertical community. Our thoughts and motives and intentions and
preferences--are all their thoughts and motives and intentions and preferences. This is
because every single process in our thinking and in our feelings is connected to every
single like process they are going through. This connection to them is effected by the
Lord in the spiritual world where our mind is. This world is above the hells where they
are, and is below the heavens where the angels are. Angels are those of humanity since the
beginning who lived a life of regeneration while in the physical body. This means a life
of religion in accordance with the commandments of that religion. This life, when lived
sincerely rather hypocritically, allows the Lord to regenerate the person's character so
that when they leave the physical body they can continue life as angels, that is, as a
husband and wife conjugial couple.
The Lord connects us to BOTH the
inhabitants of the hells and the inhabitants of the heavens. This is called our vertical
community. This two-fold connection creates spiritual freedom within our temptations.
Through an experience or an event, the Lord precipitates a temptation for which we are
ready and which is suited to our degree of consciousness. We feel our sensuous
consciousness being "pulled" this way in terms of a choice, or that way. With
each pull there is also an aversion or avoidance. We are thus poised at the cusp of
eternity, as it were, for this is a battle for our soul that will gain us eternal heaven
or hell forever. The Lord insures that our mind is always in this equal balance between
the forces of evil and good whenever we make a conscious spiritual choice. Through these
conscious spiritual choices, our character is regenerated.
With every evil choice we are brought
into tighter relationship with some particular hellish society to which we had been
connected by heredity. With every good choice we are cut off forever from some particular
hellish society to which we had been connected by heredity and are reconnected to some
angelic society. Progress is a matter of simple numbers in a huge and long battle.
Gradually we get disconnected from more and more hellish societies by each choice against
them. The choice against them must happen first, then the disconnection by the Lord and
the reconnection to a new angelic society. The connection to the angelic society cannot
take place until we have rejected and have been cut off from a corresponding hellish
society.
You can see that the process of
regeneration or character reformation, is like the growth process of a tree or your brain
cells and their synaptic nerve extensions throughout the body. The fibrils or spiritual
synapses are formed by means of our conscious decisions, and they cumulate in a hierarchy
that has consistency and regularity as seen in an individual's habits, philosophy, and
appearance.
If you don't cross the inversion line
and continue descending, you are forever removing yourself from heavenly life, heavenly
thoughts, heavenly appearances. Because heavenly life requires heavenly thoughts, and
these must be rational. Without a rational mind that is functioning and operative,
heavenly life cannot be supported within us. The Lord can transport us through the
intermediary of angels to heavenly cities. When this happens, as witnessed by Swedenborg
many times, the individuals immediately sink down to lower levels of consciousness or
existence. They complain of terror and swooning and refuse to go near that atmosphere ever
again. Thus we cannot live in heaven unless we developed our rational consciousness. And
this cannot be done unless we cross the inversion line.
This first ascending step is called
crossing the inversion line.
The crossing is achieved through the
help of the natural angels who are in our sensuous consciousness at that period (GREEN,
Adolescence). We had to go down before we could go up, and the angels who were with us
when we were low down (natural) are going to help us make the inversion. They accomplish
this through influx into our interior-natural degree which pertains to rational
consciousness.
This is our very first experience of as-of-self
rational consciousness. Until this period our intelligence was sensuous, not rational. It
appeared that we were able to think and speak rationally, but this was an appearance. The
reality was that our intelligence which was sensuous, had to be animated or vivified by
giving it a "borrowed" rational from the angels. It is because their true
rational flowed into our unconscious internal mind that our external sensuous mind could
act as if it had its own internal rational intelligence. Without some underlying rational
intelligence in the internal mind, the external conscious mind cannot think with
intelligence or and apparent rationality. Perhaps an analogy might help you understand
this more clearly.
Think of the computer application you
are using when word processing or browsing the Web or sending e-mail. Whatever you do on
the keyboard or with the mouse is monitored by the computer program and executes an
operation in accordance with its program as written by the programmer. What you see on the
screen portrays visually what is happening to a file on the computer's memory, as directed
by the program lines. What you see and what is marked on the file is the external mind and
corresponds to our conscious thinking process moment by moment. The program lines working
together in an organized sequence, correspond to our rational internal mind. You can see
that the program is inside the operations visible on the screen just like grammar or
syntax is inside the operations that create a sentence. Your rational mind is the program
that creates your conscious intelligence. You are aware of your conscious intelligence but
you are not aware of the rational syntax that create your conscious intelligence.
During our descending steps we develop
our sensuous consciousness, thus, our conscious intelligence. We use it to operate, to
think, to solve problems, to come to conclusions, to analyze, to memorize and organize and
retrieve our memories and knowledges. All this intelligence activity is external, and it
is created by something internal. The internal is the rational within the sensuous. But
since our rational is not born until after the inversion, the intelligence we develop and
use before the inversion must have the support of the angels. Their rational is what is
inside our external intelligence. But when we cross the inversion we begin to develop our
own rational and gradually we fill our internal mind with our own rational. Then we are
fully human beings. SO WE MUST CROSS THE INVERSION LINE.
During our Adolescence period (GREEN consciousness--third descending step) our natural sensuous and abstract intelligences are at their maximum. This is the period of scientific discoveries, engineering inventions, aesthetic crafts, exploration of the earth, athletic excellence and records. But in all this external sensuous achievement there is the borrowed rationality of the natural angels active in our internal mind which is the seat of rationality. This active and underlying rationality supports our outward intelligences, but they are not our own UNTIL WE CROSS THE INVERSION LINE.
We cross the inversion line when we think to ourselves:
Wait, just a minute. Am I accomplishing all this through my own powers? Isn't it true that all this is created and run by God? Well, in that case I have to shift my daily orientation. What can I find out about God and how God runs things, including me and all the details of my life? What do I owe God?
Thinking this way is called "crossing the inversion line."
It is the natural angels active in our
interior-natural mind who provide us with the rational ability to ask these questions, but
especially, to confirm the answers as-of-self. We MUST confirm the answers as-of-self.
This is the life that gives birth to rationality--as-of-self figuring it out. It's the
sensuous consciousness of mental effort. It's rational consciousness being vivified within
sensuous consciousness already operative. We begin "to see" inward. We begin to
perceive rational truths. We begin to have true representations of reality. Before this
our representations of reality were distorted, falsified. Before the inversion our mid
walks upside down; after inversion our mind walks right side up. Before the inversion we
believe and have the delusion that we are acting on our own within ourselves. This is
spiritual insanity. After the inversion we believe the truth and perceive the reality that
our rational consciousness now reveals: God.
God runs things. God arranges things in
our mind and in our body and in our environment. And He is a Human Person, the Divine
Human. He creates us immortal being who can never die. And He does all this from His Love
for each of us. And He is taking us to eternal life in heaven and saving us from living in
hell forever. All we need to do is to cooperate and go along. And now after the inversion
this cooperation becomes the center of our daily life. And this more and more, day by day.
Remember from the chart that as a child
(YELLOW consciousness) we were with the spiritual angels during which we learned about God
and how we owe Him respect and obedience in life. But this learning from the spiritual
angels was in our sensuous consciousness. Our idea of God was never rational--until we
cross the inversion and confirm it as-of-self. We could not confirm our beliefs, nor deny
them, while we were in childhood and adolescence. Confirmation is a rational activity of
the rational mind and is done as-of-self when we approach God as our Lord. We can go
though outer confirmations before the rational because these outer confirmations have the
angelic rationality within them. But not until we cross the inversion as a young adult do
we begin to confirm God from our own rationality. The earlier confirmation of God we made
was from tradition, persuasion, imagination, ritual, memory, idealism, etc. But not from
rationality, that is, from rational consciousness that perceives rational truths directly.
It is possible, as pointed out, to
simulate as-of-self rational intelligence in the descending steps, especially the last
descending step (GREEN, adolescence). But
this is a simulation possible due to the furtherance of the angels in our rational that is
not yet our own. But once we cross the inversion line, we BEGIN to acquire our own
rational. At the end of this first ascending step (BLUE) the natural angels that helped us
grow our first rational mind will withdraw and be replaced by the spiritual angels who are
higher. This is why it's called an ascending step.
The BLUE consciousness theme is
Surrender vs. Prerogatives. This is a conflict inside the husband's mind. It is a life and
death struggle in which the natural angels are working to further our positive outcome.
When we cross the inversion line we then for the first time acknowledge that we are not
master in our own house, in our marriage. We have a master who is in heaven but whose
Divine power and presence is with each individual. And so our task as individual is to
return this attention and love to God by loving Him and obeying His commandments. This is
the theme of Surrender. We surrender our lives to our master who is God.
As long as we are persistent and sincere
(but not otherwise!) God will allow us to discover what we need to know to love Him and
obey Him. Insincere love of God is actually a love of self, a love of hell and from hell.
Swedenborg has interviewed many of those who inhabit the hells and consider themselves
pious worshippers of God. They are a Church of Satan. You can claim you believe in God,
you can claim you worship and love God, but in actuality you are hating God and loving
yourself and your hell IF YOUR LOVE OF GOD IS NOT SINCERE.
God lets you know if your love for Him
is sincere or bogus. He does this by showing you what you do in temptations. When God
brings you to a temptation He connects you with evil and good spirits in the spiritual
world where your mind lives. You are conscious and aware of the choice before you. You see
yourself choose and act and think and feel as the temptation takes its course with you.
You also see yourself react to your choices, thoughts, emotions, and acts. And in these
reactions you can see sincerity or insincerity very clearly. If you chose evil and falsity
and if you allow yourself to continue to choose it, your love of God is insincere. If you
choose good, or if you choose evil then feel guilty about it, then your love for God is
sincere. If sincere, He can save you; if insincere, He cannot. And these temptations or
choices are given to us daily by the hundreds if not more.
Crossing the inversion by a sincere return to God is the beginning of your salvation. This new attitude is rational because it now reflects reality, whereas before when we thought we acted from our own power, we were not rational, not correct in our analysis of life and actuality. Now we are rational because our knowledge of reality is real. The idea of Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence is one idea made of three parts. The parts are meaningless by themselves, but together they make a rational idea--the infinity of God, or, that in God infinite things are one. To the extent that we apply this rational idea to our thinking in daily life, to that extent we are learning to become more and more rational.
Rational is therefore closeness to God.
The reason is that God=Truth. The more
complex idea is that God=Truth((Love)), which in words means that God is Divine Truth
within which is Divine Love. Divine Truth is a spiritual substance of infinite variety
that is streaming out of the Spiritual Sun (in the spiritual world). As this spiritual
light or substance appears to distance itself from the source, it appears to
"descend" and as it descends it "externalizes" itself more and more in
an ordered series, until it reaches its most external form called "physical matter,
energy, time, and space." How do I know all this? Because these rational details were
revealed in the Writings of Swedenborg.
You can see then that as our
consciousness reaches its ultimate state of externalization in the form of the external
sensuous natural mind (GREEN consciousness), we have gone the furthest out from God or
Divine Truth and reality. Our consciousness and understanding of Divine reality is the
least in this period when we rely exclusively on physical sensory data and their
abstractions. We would not be intelligent at all in such a state, were it not for the
borrowed rational of the natural angels working within our sensuous intelligence and
constricting it in specific ways so as to keep it on the path of rationality. Without this
guidance or directionality we would quickly plunge into irrationality, illogic,
superstition, magic, cult, and savagery, all of which are irrational and subhuman.
| From an article titled "Some Thoughts on Masculinity
by Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss in New Church Life 1984;109:11-15 (...) Secondly, we show true masculinity as we use wisdom to understand our wives truly. In many places in the Writings the husband is said to be the understanding of his wife's love. I think we could express it a little differently: A true husband understands his wife's loves. Reflect on that for a moment, and ask yourself how easy it is for a husband to go through life not understanding his wife's loves. He tells himself he loves her; he is thoughtful and considerate in many ways, but he is not very aware of what her secret hopes and dreams are in life. You see, a wife does not reveal her loves. From innate modesty and inborn wisdom she shields them from her husband when he is in cold. From wisdom too she knows that if he is to discover them he must do it for himself. He must want to do so; he must inquire into her feelings, spend many of his quiet moments wondering what beautiful feelings are moving her. I truly think one of the heartbreaks of a world which cares not for conjugial love is that women find their most valuable, their deepest offerings are not even known, let alone loved. Therefore the true love of marriage is to seek to understand the heart of this person you love. She wants this of her husband more than anything else - an understanding heart, which probes the depth of her being and senses the wondrous things the Lord has put there. It is a knowledge that is permitted to the husband only. And this is my point: It is only when men strive for this type of understanding that the true beauty of the feminine mind will be seen, and she will be loved for the things which the Lord Himself made her to be loved for. That is the challenge of the New Church man. Can he reach upward to that kind of masculinity? Can he avoid the pitfalls of shadow-manhood? Will he resist the temptation to judge a woman by standards that belong to the understanding or to this world alone, which will, as all cultures have done, relegate her to a lesser place in society? Or can he see that the Lord has made woman so beautiful that he must be inspired to seek after true wisdom - to understand the loves of the woman he has chosen, and when he sees them, to bring them forth into use. The New Church alone can meet that challenge, because the internal form of the feminine mind is now revealed. That is why the Lord can raise up conjugial love anew after His advent, for that love is from Him alone, and is with those who are made spiritual by Him through the Word (see CL 81e). Then, and then only, will men and women walk together on the path to heaven, and men will truly be men. |
Now notice the list of BLUE temptations for husbands given in this period. Here they are again:
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF THE
TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
INVERSION |
||
IV YOUNG ADULTHOOD BLUE NATURAL RATIONAL |
SURRENDER vs. PREROGATIVES |
**
treating his wife severely ** making her feel guilty, sinful ** insisting on male prerogatives ** quotes the Bible to her to justify himself ** likes the philosophy of male chauvinism ** indulges himself and puts himself ahead of his wife ** demanding things from his wife and insisting ** etc. etc. |
This is the mind of the husband when
imbued with religious fundamentalism (BLUE consciousness). It is assailed with temptations
that arouse his love of his masculinity, and especially, the prerogatives or perks that
come with being a male. By evolution and tradition the societies on earth have developed a
man's world, as it is called, because men have higher status than women just because of
their gender. As a result of this higher
status given to men, culture has sprung numerous rules, norms, expectations, and practices
that have a double standard--one for men, the other for women. Almost always and without
fail, the double standard favors men and castigates or discriminates against women. This
has been a tremendous tragedy for the human race. Women on this earth are treated with
amazing cruelty and ferocious hatred by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and government
officials.
The basis of BLUE temptations is the use
of religion by the husband to keep his wife subjugated to himself.
This is why the conflict theme is called
Surrender vs. Prerogatives. The rational course of action, which will develop the rational
mind of the husband, is to look at the male prerogatives he has been enjoying, and
acknowledging them as cruel and unloving to his wife, and of course, to all women. This is
the rational thing to do, to confirm, and to live. This is the meaning of loving God
sincerely. Denigrating women and treating them with hatred and cruelty is the meaning of
loving God insincerely. One leads the men of religion to heaven, the other to hell.
But the women they mistreat and kill may
easily go to heaven, depending on their sincerity to God even as they were inhumanly
treated. The mistreated and abused women still have an inner choice, which is their
relationship to God from within. This "from within" is not reachable by the evil
men who torture her and make her life miserable. God is with her from within, so that she
may talk to God, and honor God, despite what's happening to her, and beg God to liberate
her. And God does, and she awakens in a heaven where her soul mate husband is joyously
welcoming her, and she enters as a Bride and Queen, no longer mindful of her past on
earth.
Look at the list again. They are the
things we do to our wife when we want to keep male prerogatives despite our claim of
surrender to a higher power. We treat her severely, pointing the finger of God at her,
making her feel guilty and sinful because she is rebellious in his judgment and because
she doesn't want to toe the line of gender submission. He wants his perks, and she refuses
to give them to him, therefore he will demand them, and justify them with his religion. In
this way he puts himself ahead of his wife and believes in himself that he is justified,
doing the right and holy thing. But this is irrational because he is not doing the right
and holy thing. He is actually doing the wrong and evil thing. Thus he is delusional.
But when he gives up gender based prerogatives that are biased against his wife, his eyes are opened, and he can see their injustice and irrationality. He can see that they stand in the way of his regeneration. Now he conquers all his BLUE temptations, or enough of them that his spiritual rational is ready to be developed. The natural angels then leave and the spiritual angels arrive. We are ready for the second ascending step (BROWN consciousness).
Discuss the BLUE chart with your wife. Make up a hypothetical scale like this one, and rate every item.
The Temptations Husbands Must Overcome (Matrix 2) |
||
ORDERLY SEQUENCE |
MAIN CONFLICT | SYMPTOMS OF THE
TEMPTATIONS THAT HUSBANDS MUST OVERCOME TO REGENERATE |
INVERSION |
||
IV YOUNG ADULTHOOD BLUE NATURAL RATIONAL |
SURRENDER vs. PREROGATIVES |
** treating his
wife severely ** making her feel guilty, sinful ** insisting on male prerogatives ** quotes the Bible to her to justify himself ** likes the philosophy of male chauvinism ** indulges himself and puts himself ahead of his wife ** demanding things from his wife and insisting ** etc. etc. |
How often do I behave this way in relation to my wife? |
||||
| never do it | only do it as an exception | do it from time to time | regularly do it | am always ready to do it |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Let both of you fill it out independently and then compare. But remember this: your wife will UNDERESTIMATE how often you do these things to her, to spare your feelings, because she loves you, and also so that her honesty doesn't blow you away and then she'll some repairing to do to fix your ego. And you will also UNDERESTIMATE how much you do these bad things to her because we are biased in favor of ourselves and quite blind to ourselves as a result. This is why we need the wife to lead us out of this hellish morass we call our ego and character.
And don't forget to solicit from her to specify more items where the ** etc. etc. line is. Give her plenty of paper!! And of course, you must do that yourself independently of her, and then again after you see what she added. But the responsibility rests on you to ferret out all your BLUE temptations.
Look at the list of BROWN temptations:
V ADULTHOOD BROWN SPIRITUAL RATIONAL |
SPECIALIZATION vs. INSECURITIES |
**
feeling disapproval for his wife ** being intolerant of something about his wife ** fears the feminization of religion, wanting gender roles and rules ** puts the Church ahead of the wife ** rejects affirmative action for husbands (like the Doctrine of the Wife or, feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society) ** does not mind using gender biased language like "man" and "he" ** secretly believes in the intellectual inferiority of women ** doesn't mind if the wife feels "closed out" from a portion of his life ** is willing to remain in conjugial cold in his internal mind as long as he feels heat towards her in the external mind ** does not feel responsible for his wife's insecurities stemming from the doctrine of specialization ** does not feel sympathy for the insecurities she has about gender role divisions and how these interfere with conjugial love ** etc. etc. |
The conflict theme in this period is
called Specialization vs. Insecurities. This refers to the insecurities of the wife for
which we husbands are responsible because of our unwillingness to give up an irrational
belief in our gender superiority. In the previous step of BLUE consciousness, we left
behind the irrational idea that male prerogatives are protected and enjoined by religion.
This was called the Doctrine of Fundamentalism in an earlier chart above (matrix 1). But
now another similar but more virulent anti-rational idea holds our attention and belief
system. It is called the Doctrine of the Church, not the true Doctrine of the true Church,
but the husband's doctrine of the falsified Church he erects in his imagination and
delusion. The true Doctrine of the Church is holy and from the Word, but a right
understanding of the Doctrine relating to gender roles only develops later. At first, the
doctrine of the Church we create from our self-intelligence is an unholy heresy and serves
only to maintain our superiority over our wife.
In the earlier state we gave up the idea that male prerogatives are enjoined by religion and by God's creation (as we had believed in BLUE consciousness). We can give up enjoyment of these prerogatives as unworthy of us. And yet we are still prisoners of a deeper view we hold that was not apparent to us until now because it was deeply hidden and covered over. But now as we are into the development of BROWN consciousness the Divine Therapist brings these hidden inclinations to our new awareness. With this new awareness we can witness our strivings and our justifications whenever the subject of women or the feminine is brought to the fore.
Look at the list again.
These are the ways we create
insecurities in our wife's mind and heart.
We do this because her insecurities
as wife insure the maintenance of our superiority as husband.
To be healed from these plagues we must
identify with her insecurities and see that it is us who create them by not managing them
appropriately, with compassion and friendship. And we must confirm by self-examination and
self-witnessing how we keep her insecure and when it is that we pull out our masculine
guns and threaten her with one of these insecurities. The basis of our attack is to make
her feel excluded by Divine Law from some of the husband's Divinely given roles, tasks,
and abilities. This excludes her by constitutional authority, and she is rendered
powerless to save the husband from himself. Yet this is her God-given task, and this is
his only salvation.
I have recommended a technique called
"affirmative action for husbands" with respect to the three ascending steps of
rational consciousness. This is the idea in the Doctrine of the Wife that we should act as
if we take on the responsibility for all of society in terms of its discrimination against
women. We must "bend over backwards" and declare ourselves guilty of society's
discrimination against women because al along we have been enjoying our special male
advantages. We have not rejected these male prerogatives given to us by society. Even if
we are not the ones who established them, even though we were born into such a society,
nevertheless we are guilty for not rebelling against the discrimination. We went along
with it and are still going along with it. We are not breaking down doors, voting
politicians out of office, bending over backwards to give women employees an advantage in
the workplace. We just quietly go along with it, and even if we protest verbally and
philosophically, we still go along with the de facto situation. Therefore we should label
ourselves as guilty participants, for then we can change our view of our wife.
By "affirmative action" I mean
going overboard in favor of women and without debate finding men automatically at fault,
thus in need of amendment and repentance. We must repudiate the superior status with which
we are born as males and which our culture gives us permission to enact and enjoy. Instead
we must do the opposite of what male superiority enjoins. We must choose to voluntarily act as if we are submissive to our
wife, to her inclinations, her wisdom. You can see this article for more details.
When we can support this approach, we
can cross into the next period of development, the last ascending step (BLACK
consciousness).
V ADULTHOOD BROWN SPIRITUAL RATIONAL |
SPECIALIZATION vs. INSECURITIES |
**
feeling disapproval for his wife ** being intolerant of something about his wife ** fears the feminization of religion, wanting gender roles and rules ** puts the Church ahead of the wife ** rejects affirmative action for husbands (like the Doctrine of the Wife or, feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society) ** does not mind using gender biased language like "man" and "he" ** secretly believes in the intellectual inferiority of women ** doesn't mind if the wife feels "closed out" from a portion of his life ** is willing to remain in conjugial cold in his internal mind as long as he feels heat towards her in the external mind ** does not feel responsible for his wife's insecurities stemming from the doctrine of specialization ** does not feel sympathy for the insecurities she has about gender role divisions and how these interfere with conjugial love ** etc. etc. |
Discuss the BROWN chart with your wife. Make up a hypothetical scale like this one, and rate every item.
How often do I behave this way in relation to my wife? |
||||
| never do it | only do it as an exception | do it from time to time | regularly do it | am always ready to do it |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Let both of you fill it out independently and then compare. But remember this: your wife will UNDERESTIMATE how often you do these things to her, to spare your feelings, because she loves you, and also so that her honesty doesn't blow you away and then she'll some repairing to do to fix your ego. And you will also UNDERESTIMATE how much you do these bad things to her because we are biased in favor of ourselves and quite blind to ourselves as a result. This is why we need the wife to lead us out of this hellish morass we call our ego and character.
And don't forget to solicit from her to specify more items where the ** etc. etc. line is. Give her plenty of paper!! And of course, you must do that yourself independently of her, and then again after you see what she added. But the responsibility rests on you to ferret out all your BROWN temptations.
VI OLD AGE BLACK CELESTIAL RATIONAL |
UNITY vs. DISCONNECTION |
** expresses
impatience to his wife ** discounts in his mind what wife wants or thinks ** does not value something his wife values ** automatically believes himself before he believes his wife ** likes the idea of treating women special, yet is inwardly proud of his maleness ** is inclined to love his own wisdom before his wife's ** says that he puts the wife ahead of the Church, but doesn't ** says he accepts the Doctrine of the Wife, but makes exceptions when he feels like it ** practices the principle of affirmative action for husbands (=feeling responsible as a male for the abuse of women in society), but only on a part time basis ** dedicated to unity and eternity, yet tolerates separation when convenient ** disconnects himself from his wife as soon as she stands up to him, immunizing his emotions so she can't bother him or "get to him" ** feels self-sufficient in his internal mind, untouchable, independent ** enjoys his wife's frustration at not being able to get to him on the inside (influence him or make him back off) ** practices being a countercurrent to his wife, enjoying the sense of power ** etc. etc. |
BLACK consciousness is the state of our
third and last ascending step. This is home coming. This is the fully human state that we
will enjoy in one of the three heavens after we exit from the physical body. This is the
state we will be growing in to eternity, regenerating more and more, that is, becoming
more and more rational. And this means getting closer and closer to the Divine. The closer
we can get to the Divine, the more we can understand and love His inner rational truths
that are endless. These also reflect the quality of our life and the inner capacities we
are able to receive from the Divine. It is the last ascending step because we leave the
spiritual angels and are now back with the celestial or highest angels who are guiding the
growth of our interior celestial rational mind. We were with the celestial angels in our
Infancy period (WHITE consciousness), but their presence in our awareness was in the
external mind of sensuous consciousness. But now (BLACK consciousness) we are consciously
growing in our rational perceptions, which are in the internal mind.
The chart labels this period by the
theme conflict of Unity vs. Disconnection. This refers to the husband's disconnection from
his wife's affections. When it comes down to the most basic level, the highest state we
can be in as humans, what do we find that keeps us from enjoying it and being in it? They
appear on the surface to be little things that disconnect us from the wife in comparison
to the big things in earlier periods. In the state immediately before the inversion the
theme was Equity vs. Abusiveness (GREEN consciousness). This is big and visible and ugly.
Then as we cross the inversion line the conflict theme becomes Sincere Surrender to God's
Authority vs. Using God to Retain Male Prerogatives (BLUE consciousness). Insisting on our
male prerogatives sounds less serious a crime against women than Abusiveness, Violence,
and the Enjoyment of Cruelty. This is true. And yet, seen from the inside, the conflicts
and crimes against women in the ascending steps are even more injurious to the development
of unity because they are more subtle, more hidden, more virulent in the long run and we
need to dig deeper to see them and get rid of them.
On the surface, BLACK temptations appear less serious than the temptations before. Look at the list again.
Note how a lot of these temptations have
to do with protecting our conveniences. This is even more subtle than protecting our
prerogatives (BLUE consciousness) or protecting our God given superiority (BROWN
consciousness). Why do we not value something our wife values when we are committed to
unity with her? The answer is because it's inconvenient. We have our own values and plans,
and we take these to be rational and good because they are based on our love for religion
and revelation. So we think within ourselves,
and so we try to convince our wife. But to her it's plain and simple, and perfectly
rational. If the husband really wanted unity he would not discount her ideas and her
values and her approach to any single thing or all things taken together. She plainly sees
that her husband is reluctant to listen to her wisdom because it's sooooo inconvenient to
him.
She sees that the husband is
theoretically committed to the Doctrine of the Wife and she sees that he is officially
supportive of the affirmative action philosophy. Yet she sees how we fail to live by these
ideals on account of our unwillingness to give up the conveniences of our superior
position. We have now achieved our regeneration efforts, enough to be at the doorsteps of
heaven and ready to enter with our wife at our arms. And yet we won't step over into the
actual courtyard. We linger on the outside edges of the celestial property. We loiter
there and are in great great danger of
slipping back, slipping away, sliding down, and out into the outer darkness of male
chauvinism and hell.
But the celestial angels working within
our inmost mind give aid and guidance and we only need to obey from within. At last we can
enter the courts of conjugial love and enjoy that state even while we are here on earth,
knowing with full guarantee, that we will continue together as a couple, this conjugial
life that will be immeasurably aggrandized as soon as we cross the bar and enter the
heavens.
In a subsequent section below we will
discuss the Scriptural justifications for the Doctrine of the Wife. This is important
because to our generation, and from us onward into the future, the Writings of Swedenborg
will be the primary and perhaps only source of rational truths that are Divine Truths
because they are revelations from God given for our regeneration. So we will adduce
various passages and arguments from the Writings to show how the Doctrine of the Wife is a
philosophy of doing for regenerating husbands that is clearly indicated by revelation. It
is our guide post to conjugial love, and thus to heaven.
I think it is most important for
husbands to keep very close track of their temptations in marriage. Most women and a few
men will be able to give their assent to the idea of the Doctrine of the Wife when they
hear it explained, as in this article. But the majority of men will want
"Scriptural" proof, and this I give below in a small way. I believe this is
something for husbands to do as they strive to confirm the principle of the Doctrine of
the Wife. They would want to use their knowledge of the scientifics of the Writings to
confirm the Doctrine of the Wife, and as this literature and research accumulates, more
and more proof will be available to confirm
the many details of the Doctrine of the Wife.
The Doctrine of the Wife is the Crown of the rational truths a husband can have with respect to marriage and regeneration. Conjugial love is the love of all loves, which means that all loves are under this one. "All loves" include the love of science, wisdom, and abilities. Conjugial love is ahead of all of them; all loves depend on conjugial love. And conjugial love has the wife at its center and crown. This is repeated many times in the Writings where women represent truths, higher truths, rational truths, inmost truths, and Divine Truths. These truths are called virgins, wives, women, daughters, sisters, and mothers. Women are at the