f the extent uninhabited.

169. When the angelic spirits who were from that earth came into view,
they accosted us, asking who we were, and what we wanted. We told them
that we were travelling, that we had been transported thither, and
that they had nothing to fear from us. For they were afraid that we
were of those who disturb them concerning God, faith, and kindred
subjects, on account of whom they had betaken themselves to that
quarter of their earth, shunning them as much as possible. We asked
them by what they were disturbed. They replied, by the idea of Three,
and by the idea of the Divine without the Human in God, when they yet
know and perceive that God is one, and that He is man. It was then
perceived that those who disturbed them, and whom they shunned, were
from our Earth: this was manifest also from this consideration, that
there are spirits from our Earth who thus wander about in the other
life, in consequence of their fondness for and delight in travelling,
which they have contracted in the world; for on other earths there is
no such custom of travelling as on ours. It was afterwards discovered
that they were monks, who had travelled on our globe from a desire
to convert the gentiles. We therefore told them that they did well to
shun them, because their intention was, not to teach, but to secure
gain and dominion; and that they strive by various means first to
captivate men's minds (_animi_), and afterwards to subject them to
themselves as slaves: moreover, that they did well in not suffering
their idea concerning God to be disturbed by such spirits. They said
further, that these spirits also confuse them by asserting that they
ought to have faith, and to believe what they say; but that their
reply to them is, that they do not know what faith or believing means,
since they perceive in themselves whether a thing be so or not. They
were of the Lord's celestial kingdom, where all know by interior
perception the truths which with us are called the truths of faith,
for they are in enlightenment from the Lord; but it is otherwise with
those who are in the spiritual kingdom. That the angelic spirits of
that earth were of the Lord's celestial kingdom, I could also see from
the flame whence their ideas flowed; for in the celestial kingdom the
light is flaming, and in the spiritual kingdom it is bright white.
They who are of the celestial kingdom, when the discourse is about
truths, say no more than Yea, yea, or Nay