173. The spirits of that earth mentioned also, among other things, that those strangers, who, as has been said, were monkish spirits, used all their endeavors to persuade them to live together in society, and not separate and solitary; for spirits and angels dwell and associate in like manner as in the world; they who have dwelt in communities in the world, dwell also in a similar state in the other life; and they who have dwelt in a separate state, divided into houses and families, dwell also in a separate state in another life. These spirits on their earth, while they lived there as men, had dwelt in a separate state, house and house, families and families, and thus nation and nation apart, and hence they knew not what it was to dwell together in society. Wherefore when it was told them that those strangers wished to persuade them to dwell in society, to the intent that they might rule and have dominion over them, and that they could not otherwise subject them to themselves and make them slaves, they replied that they were totally ignorant what was meant by ruling and domineering. That they flee away at the very idea of rule and dominion, was made manifest to me from this, that one of them, who accompanied us back again, when I showed him the city in which I dwelt, at the first sight of it fled away, and was no more seen.