BEECH TREE >> The Truths of Conjugial love in the Natural planes of the Mind

 The signification of almonds, as principles of charity in life, suggests the idea that other nuts may represent the living of other good principles, and the trees themselves the   knowledge of them.

A solitary beech is a wide-spreading, symmetrical tree; but in the forests it sometimes attains a considerable height. Its bark is smooth, which, together with the polish and integrity of the leaves, gives an impression of extreme cleanliness.  Its nuts are very oily, sharply three-sided, growing in pairs in bristly burs. The cleanliness of the tree suggests that the principle which it represents is a principle of purity. The oil of the fruit shows that the corresponding works are works of love. Their growing in pairs indicates that they relate to marriage—all of which is confirmed and made definite by what Swedenborg says of them in the other world. In the description of the palace representing conjugial love in the three planes of the mind, he relates that around the palace were olive, palm, and beech trees; which three, he says, represent the truths of conjugial love in the celestial, spiritual and natural planes of the mind respectively (Conjugial Love #270).

The olive, as we have seen, represents the perception and knowledge of the Lord’s love, which, when retrieved, manifests itself as mutual love, and especially as the sweetest form of mutual love, which is conjugial love. The palm also, in representing a knowledge of the Lord’s salvation, relates especially to salvation from the natural passions of youth, and to the consequent reception of a pure-hearted love for marriage. And the beech must represent a knowledge of the duty of singleness in marriage. The three-sided nuts, full of pleasant oil, and growing, a pair close together within each smooth-lined bristly bur, are as pretty an image as a plant can show of life according to this principle.

Author: JOHN WORCESTER 1875