The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is heaven. Evil is hell.

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the cause of the following errors:— 1. That man has two real existing principles, viz., a Body and a Soul. 2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul. 3. That God will torment man in Eternity for following his Energies. But the following contraries to these are true:— 1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul. For that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age. 2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference 3. Energy is Eternal Delight. Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling. And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire. The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor or Reason is called Messiah. And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host is called the Devil, or Satan, and his children are called Sin and Death. But in the book of Job, Milton's Messiah is called Satan. For this history has been adopted by both parties. It indeed appeared to Reason as if desire was cast out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of what he stole from the abyss. This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter or desire that Reason may have ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire. Know that after Christ's death he became Jehovah. But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son a ratio of the five senses, and the Holy Ghost vacuum! Note.—The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it. „The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure." „The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. Folly is the cloak of knav-ery. Shame is Pride's cloak. Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you. Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth. The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow. The fox provides for him-self, but God provides for the lion. Think in the morning, act in the noon, eat in the evening, sleep in the night. He who has suffered you to impose on him knows you. As the plough follows words, so God rewards prayers.

Expect poison from the standing water. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

The weak in courage is strong in cunning. The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse how he shall take his prey. The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. If others had not been foolish we should have been so.

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. To create a little flower is the labour of ages. Damn braces; bless relaxes. The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.

The crow wished everything was black; the owl that everything was white. Exuberance is Beauty.

Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius. Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. Where man is not, nature is barren. Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not to be believed. Enough! or Too much.

And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.

Isaiah answered:"I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception: but my senses discovered the infinite in everything;

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

God only acts and is in existing beings or men.” “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics” „

Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods.

Thus Swedenborg's writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further.

But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.”” Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil uttered these words:

The Angel hearing this became almost blue, but mastering himself he grew yellow, and at last white-pink and smiling, and then replied:

“Look up! look up! O citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance! O Jew, leave counting gold; return to thy oil and wine! O African, black African! (Go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)” “Let the Priests of the Raven of Dawn, no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the Sons of Joy. Nor his accepted brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free, lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious lechery call that virginity that wishes, but acts not! For everything that lives is holy.”Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is heaven. Evil is hell.” „It indeed appeared to Reason as if desire was cast out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of what he stole from the abyss. This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter or desire that Reason may have ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire. Know that after Christ's death he became Jehovah. But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son a ratio of the five senses, and the Holy Ghost vacuum! Note.—The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.” „The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.” „A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” „The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.” „The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. Folly is the cloak of knav-ery. Shame is Pride's cloak. Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.” „The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. The selfish smiling fool and the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise that they may be a rod. What is now proved was once only imagined.” „Expect poison from the standing water. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. Listen to the fool's reproach; it is a kingly title. The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. The weak in courage is strong in cunning. The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse how he shall take his prey. The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. If others had not been foolish we should have been so. The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.” “And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.” “Isaiah answered:

Look up! look up! O citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance! O Jew, leave counting gold; return to thy oil and wine! O African, black African! (Go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)