2571. Nor can those inward spirits be where good inward spirits are, any more than people in the world who cannot be together because their intentions are opposite. That they are able to be together in the world is only so that they can employ their plundering tricks to make off with their goods, or use them as servants. In the other life it is different. When good spirits are at hand, they absolutely have to flee away, being almost bored to exhaustion, for there they cannot profit from them. That they cannot be together is shown only by this, that if angels look into them, those spirits are affected with such anguish that they seem to perish, and seem to themselves to turn into filthy reptiles and wild animals. So the Lord disposes things in such a way that they cannot breathe poisonous evil into the faithful. 1748, 8 July.